


Well,

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, a study of love in different universes, read the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Love is a pretty magical thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Im reposting this
> 
> Anyway, there's a suicide attempt in this. It's not final, it's not successful, and nobody dies, but there IS one and you should be careful if it triggers u.

Dear reader, an introduction, or perhaps, your confusion

 

_there was, once upon a time, a little warrior born from the dust of long deceased planets and the remnants of a supernova._

_the little warrior had always been in love, even as the deity shaped him up to be the strongest soul out in the galaxies. he was in love with someone whom he had never known or met or seen in his life, if he even had a life to begin with._

_the little warrior was a project of sort, or perhaps he was unplanned, but the deity never let him out of its sight as he scoured the universe and caught the attention of a whimsical soul, as he was destined to, even without a destiny._

_love is a potent link, a magical red thread uniting two souls that are both unrelated and yet destined to be together. love can do everything a person believes they can't, and that is how the little warrior's story begins, climaxes, and ends,_ _for love is the biggest cause of unexplained miracles._

 

 

⚘

 

 

When Hajime opens his eyes, he is standing with his back pressed against the wall of a building, on the streets of a city with an incredible view of the Earth rise and where the weather is not too capricious. The billboard, stretched across a line of skyscrapers on the street opposite him, says as much, with the smiling face of a man, revealing perfect, shining teeth, staring right back at him. The text across his torso spells out in bright and bold letters: “ _Easy weather, easy living! Relocate to New Tokyo_!” and below that, “ _The Moon has never been so pleasant_!”

Tooru stands next to him. He is small; tiny, really. A thick coat is draped across his shoulders and his tiny, chubby hands pop out from beneath the bunched up sleeves protecting him from the cold, leaving the fogged print of his fingers on the clean glass of the storefront’s window. His eyes twinkle and his mouth is spread in the brightest smile, reminiscent of the sun itself, or perhaps, as luminescent as the surface of the moon, when it is daytime in Europe and the sun shines directly upon their city. Hajime considers, very briefly, shielding him, shielding that smile from the rest of the world, because something this beautiful should be reserved only for good men. 

But Hajime is a hypocrite, not a good man. He has never been good. The blood of others rests on his hands like a carmine ghost, ever present and yet invisible to those who are unaware of its existence. So he thinks, selfishly, that perhaps he should keep that smile for those who deserve it. The small girl in Tooru's class, perhaps, the one that manages with only the briefest of glances to make Tooru sputter and lose that smooth composure he's been working so hard on. Or perhaps, that old lady down the street from the Oikawa mansion, who has always treated Tooru with the perfect balance between respect and doting. 

After all, it seems difficult for those separated from the world of children by their own cynicism, by adulthood, by _growing up_ , to remember that no matter how much of a genius he may be, Tooru is still only an 8 year old child. 

Hajime doesn't get the chance to forget.

Hajime’s gaze trails from Tooru, with snot dripping from his red nose and eyes wide as saucers, to the street, bustling with people tall and short, thick and thin. A man, with gloved hands hanging low at his side, walks a little too close to Tooru, the back of his hand almost brushing the puffy material of Tooru's jacket, and Hajime feels his teeth bare before he can so much as get himself under control. 

_You look like a downright wolf when you protect my child,_ Tooru’s mother had said, an edge of pride in her voice. _That’s something I like about you. Scare them away from him, let nothing hurt him. Let nothing_ ** _touch_** _him._

_Of course,_ he’d replied. No matter what his job had been before he became Tooru's bodyguard, when faced with the choice, Hajime's loyalty to Tooru and his bright eyes full of curiosity had won out every time. Tooru's mother had very quickly figured that out, and had wasted no time to exploit the red thread linking the heart of her son and his bodyguard together, turning Hajime into a mad dog the moment Tooru's life was threatened.

_ Keep loving him the way his father and I cannot, _ she'd said, a sadness seeping into her otherwise steely gaze. _Be his friend, his guardian, his link to the outside world._

Turning back to Tooru, he growls when a woman tries to catch a better view of the beautiful, beautiful young boy. It’s a common thing, for those native from the moon, to be fascinated by the disposition of those originally from Earth. Hajime doesn’t quite appreciate their interest being aimed at his protégé, however. She jumps at the sound of his hostility, gaze sliding up to meet Hajime’s, and scurries off the moment Hajime pushes himself off the wall, making himself seem as large as possible by puffing up his chest in a show of intimidation. 

Grumbling under his breath, Hajime shifts to stand next to Tooru, not speaking to him, but not moving away, either, protecting him from close and from afar. Tooru doesn’t pay attention to him, for now, curled fringe sticking to the glass pane as his breath condenses onto the display window, fogging it up.

“Iwa-chan?” Tooru finally speaks up, turning to face him. “Can we get one?”

“‘Course,” Hajime says, because he’s always been weak to Tooru like this, wide eyes sparkling with the type of excitement that is bare, and honest, and Hajime never wants it to dwindle. His weakness to most kinds of Toorus is something he learned very quickly. Saying no to him, however, is something Hajime hasn’t quite figured out how to do yet.

_One day_ , he tells himself.

Tooru beams, smile like a ray of sunshine and much too warm for the cold moon weather. Hajime mirrors his expression, kneeling at his side to tighten the coat around him. “Your mother’ll kill me if I end up letting you get sick,” he explains, because Tooru struggles against the tight confines of his clothing and whines when the zipper clips the skin of his chin. “You know how cold the moon gets, especially in the evening. C’mon, now, don’t be difficult, Oikawa- _sama_.”

Hajime’s accentuation of the honorific earns an undignified squawk from Tooru. “I hate it when people call me that!” he complains loudly, but pushes the doors to the shop open with one hand anyhow. With the other, he clutches the front of Hajime’s own coat, tugging on it as if searching for the kind of security that only Hajime can bring. Hajime follows suit, obedient as always, as Tooru drags him to the counter.

Moon Cream, as the recently gone-viral product is named, is a type of soft serve ice cream that somehow manages to remain as warm as a hot beverage. Tooru has developed a fascination with the magical creation, has been fascinated with the topic of magic ever since reality-altering forces were discovered; from the capability to create something warm out of frozen ingredients, to the possibility of breathing in raspberry flavoured space oxygen, or lack thereof, without dying. 

Ever since then, Tooru hasn’t stopped dragging Hajime out of the Oikawa mansion simply to watch the Moon Cream machine on display at the store do its work, to watch the soft clouds of sparkling dust take hold over the confectionery, make it steam instead of freeze, and yet freeze instead of melt.

“He'll have two scoops,” Hajime says, to the woman over the counter, all the while reaching for his wallet. She giggles, watches Tooru jump up and down in an attempt to look over the counter as well. 

“And what flavour will it be?” she asks, gesturing to the wide array of choices. Tooru immediately sticks his face to the display glass, and Hajime has half a mind to berate him for his manners. Tooru’s eyes scan from mango to peach, to jupiter berry and neptune mint, but Hajime already knows what his choice is going to be.

“This one,” Tooru states, pointing at the chocolate flavour, at the same time that Hajime says “Two scoops of chocolate.”

At the sound of Hajime’s voice, Tooru’s brows furrow and his mouth settles into a pout. He whirls around, cowlicks bouncing over his ears, fixing Hajime with an icy glare. “Iwa-chan!” he exclaims, outraged. “How could you forget vanilla?”

“Forgive me, Oikawa- _sama_ ,” Hajime immediately retorts, eyes rolling before settling on the shopkeeper. Despite the neutral smile on her face, he can tell that she is holding back laughter, and he feels sheepish for being unable to control the hurricane that is Oikawa Tooru. "Forgive the little Lord," he says, "one vanilla and one chocolate."

The shopkeeper scoops a ball of vanilla moon cream into a small paper cup, and then scoops a ball of chocolate moon cream atop it. She hands it to Tooru over the counter, who stands on his tip toes to reach for it. He exhales a sigh as the heat from the ice cream seeps through the cup and warms up his fingers.

“Thank you!” he calls out, smile blindingly bright as he rolls back on the balls of his feet and runs to the other side of the shop, zigzagging between dainty, bright coloured tables and stools, to garnish his ice cream with equally as unhealthy toppings. Hajime watches him, knowing that he’s let a fond smile cross his face, before he turns back to the cashier to pay for the treat. 

They stumble out of the shop and into the cold moon air. Hajime takes a deep breath, feels the moon dust land on his skin and decides it’s perhaps time for them to head home, before the storm that’d been on all weather channels arrives. 

“Let’s take the bus,” he says, nudging Tooru’s shoulder softly with his hand. Tooru licks a drop of ice cream from his finger, scrunches his face at the taste of mixed salt from his hand and ice cream, before he nods wordlessly, dipping the spoon back into the scoop of soft serve.

He’s still upset, Hajime realises. For some inexplicable reason, Hajime forgetting to order vanilla flavoured ice cream alongside Tooru’s usual chocolate has gotten on Tooru’s nerve enough to earn him the silent treatment. Hajime ruminates over it, confused by the mind of a genius 8 year old, as they sit, side by side, on the bus, and as they walk up the hill to the Oikawa mansion, Tooru fiddling with the plastic spoon in his mouth.

“I can’t believe you almost forgot vanilla,” Tooru grumbles, finally breaking the silent spell, as they come to a stop before the gate to the Oikawa mansion, looking down into the now empty cup of moon cream. 

“Didn’t realise it’d be that important to you,” Hajime replies, punching in the code to open the gates. “You could’ve simply asked for it, instead of throwing a tantrum and acting like I’m the most horrible person in the universe for forgetting something so mundane.”

“Iwa-chan, how could you call it mundane!” Tooru squawks, outraged. “You’re supposed to _respect_ me!”

“I’ll respect you when you act respectable. You know, like when you don’t throw tantrums in the middle of a moon cream shop because I forgot to order vanilla with your chocolate.”

“Don’t you understand?” Tooru exclaims, little hands crushing the cup under their iron tight grip. “It was a matter of life and death! There’s no vanilla without chocolate!”

Hajime dips down to swoop the cup from Tooru’s hold. “Life and death? What are you, a shounen protagonist?”

“No,” Tooru huffs, “I’m not. It’s like,” he pauses, brain sorting through the piles of teachings he is forced to sit through every day in order to find a proper comparison, “you know, the earth without the moon, the yin without the yang.”

“Is that so,” Hajime replies, toneless and disinterested.

Tooru presses his cold fingers to his own rosy cheek. “It’s like having Tooru without his Iwa-chan!”

Hajime stops in his tracks, the sight of a being made of starlight suddenly coming to the forefront of his mind, accompanied by a chorus of ' _iwa-chans_ ' and the word _love,_ repeated, over and over by different voices and yet by the same person-

Creaking echoes around the garden of lunar plants as the gate begins to close, threatening to crush him.

“What did you say?” he finally says, feeling winded, for some reason. Tooru, ever oblivious, the mind of a child easily distracted, takes a few steps onto the gravel path leading to his home, before he turns around, confused. 

“What?”

“What did you say just now?”

“That you can’t have vanilla ice cream without chocolate?” responds Tooru. “Wait no, you can’t have chocolate without vanilla. Or— I don’t know. Both. Something. I’m tired. Carry me, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime's chest feels tight. “You’re a grown ass kid, you can walk,” he retorts, attempting to keep some semblance of normalcy. 

“Profanity!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t tell your mother,” Hajime retorts, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. He crouches on the floor, gives Tooru an expectant look. “Come on, don’t make me beg.”

Tooru giggles, taking a few steps back to give himself space for a running start and launches himself onto Hajime’s back, landing with a quiet cough. “You’re ridiculously heavy for a tiny kid,” Hajime wheezes, but Tooru’s hands are tightly gripping his shirt and he’s made himself comfortable for the short walk from the gate to his house.

Hajime listens to the kid’s steady breathing, chorused by the crunch of his boots against the gravel below him. It smells like raspberries around Tooru, and Hajime takes comfort in that, in the somehow familiar scent. He steps in front of the door, watches it slide open, and lets himself sigh at the heat coming from within the house wrapping around him, a strong and welcome contrast to the cold temperatures of the moon. 

Tooru shifts on his back, already half asleep despite the massive dose of sugar coursing through his veins from the moon cream. Hajime smiles, adjusts Tooru’s weight on his arms, blinks once, and the world around him fades to black.

 

 

⚘

 

 

_An interlude_

 

_“Such is your life,” the celestial body declares. Hajime distractedly watches the stars twirl around its head in a makeshift crown, watches as the nebulous strands of hair, twisting in coils beneath the coronal, shape ever changing, flutter around its head._

_“What,” he eloquently replies, after snapping out of his trance, toneless and yet confused._

_One of the stars on its skin begins to shine brighter, as if flaring in irritation. “Your destiny, as it were,” it says._

_“I don’t have a destiny,” Hajime claims. He doesn’t, or, well, not one that he can feel, anyway. He’s never believed in that stuff, and maybe has never believed in anything in the first place. He’s not quite sure where he is, who he is, either._

_Hold on a moment, he thinks. He’s never believed in that stuff but he has no memory of having ever lived._

_“What… what are all these memories?” he asks._

_“Do you not remember him?” the deity asks, but from its smile, Hajime has a feeling that it may be teasing him._

_“I don’t.”_

_“And you won’t.”_

_Hajime cocks his head, confused. “But I do,” he replies. “I remember everything about him.”_

_“But you won’t.”_

_“I don’t…”_

_“Understand?” the deity finishes for him, waving a dismissing hand in the air. From its skin, specks of starlight fall to the ground, forgotten, much like Hajime's very own life. “You will. In due time.”_

 

 

⚘

 

 

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in a large garden, a massive house looming over him. A small puff of smoke escapes his mouth as he exhales, and he clenches his teeth against the fire burning from within him.

He grabs onto the pipe trailing along the side of the mansion, careful not to let the singed ends of his fingers leave any marks on the pristine white exterior of the house, and begins climbing, grumbling to himself about the size of the damn mansion. Not in his entire life could he have predicted that he'd end up scaling the walls of a mansion in the upper rings of the city, just to meet the person whom he's come to love the most. After all, this is a world where Tooru and him live on two different sides of a spectrum. Tooru, the son of a CEO, fed from a silver spoon from birth, and Hajime, borne from the slums of Tokyo, drunken father and deceased mother all in one.

Tooru, a boy who manipulates plants, who gives life and grows flowers from his very skin, who radiates beauty and respect, and Hajime, a boy who handles fire, used by the city to destroy scraps, and who marks everything that he touches in black.

Two parts of a whole, opposites, separated, with a barrier of panicked words standing between them.

_I can’t be seen with you_ , and _I’m not gay_ and _my parents would kill me—_ words that used to be whispered into the dead of night, when Tooru still quivered at the thought of kissing Hajime. When the mere thought of being marked by the soot on Hajime's fingers had Tooru pushing him away, whispering those words to himself fervently, like the mantra would actually change the way his own emotions resonated from within his core. 

_Now_ , Hajime thinks, now he quivers for an entirely different reason, when they kiss. Hajime grins to himself, fits his fingers along the angle of the platform below Tooru’s window and pulls himself up. 

Through the glass pane, Hajime can see Tooru wrapped up in a blanket, skin and hair paling under the blue sheen of his laptop screen. A show, probably one concerning aliens, if Hajime knows Tooru as well as he thinks he does, is playing. A character — a red headed woman with a soft jaw — speaks frantically, the Japanese subtitles beneath the image moving at a speed that Hajime wouldn’t be able to follow even if he was close enough to read them.

Tooru is so beautiful, like this. Then again, Hajime has yet to find a Tooru he doesn’t think is beautiful.

Hajime raises a hand, curls his fingers toward his palm in a loose fist and knocks on the window with three quick strikes. Tooru jumps on the spot and, oh, he was eating ice cream. _Is he feeling alright_? Hajime wonders.

The tub slides off Tooru’s lap and onto the floor, empty and forgotten.

Hajime knocks again.

Tooru turns to the window, eyes wide behind his glasses and jumps off his chair. “What the hell are you doing?” he hisses, fingers fumbling to slide the window open wide enough to let Hajime through.

“I,” Hajime grunts, hoisting himself over the windowsill, “am breaking you out of here.”

Tooru backs away from him, giving Hajime enough space to land on his bedroom floor as quietly as possible. “Breaking me— what? I’m not imprisoned!”

“I just… It sounds more wild and free than ‘I want to go on a Friday night date with you’.” 

Hajime suddenly feels sheepish for trying to seem like someone, like something he isn’t. Something he learned very quickly over the budding course of their friendship, and perhaps, more than that, is that there is no need for him to pretend around Tooru. There's no need to look like the savage that Tooru's parents make him out to be, because Tooru knows better, has always known better. 

Tooru is, for lack of a better word, safe.

“A date,” Tooru replies, dubiously. He crosses his arms across his chest, all lithe and graceful, cocks his head to the side. “Bad boy Iwaizumi Hajime, the light of everyone's nightlife, wants to take me on a date.”

Hajime can feel his cheeks burning. “Is that so surprising?”

“Considering our history,” Tooru notes, “of… sleeping with each other and waking up reeking of alcoholic beverages and regret, yes, it is.” He tilts his body away from Hajime. “And it took me three days to get the soot marks off my skin,” he mutters.

The image of a flustered Tooru in the shower, pink amaryllises blooming along his arms, desperately trying to scrub away the evidence of their nights together has Hajime flushing from head to toe.

“Just… let me take you out.”

“On one condition,” Tooru says, bending down to pick up his laptop from his bed. 

“What would that be?”

“Actually, make that two conditions.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Tooru glances back at him, the light reflecting off of his glasses obscuring his eyes. “You’re not taking me to a party. I’ve had my fair share of the ‘wild’ life, and it’s really not for me.”

Hajime nods. He’d noticed Tooru’s increasing animosity toward his usual nightlife, and the way he hadn't taken kindly to other members of Hajime's community making fun of him for his rich background. “What’s the second condition?”

“The second condition,” Tooru pauses, clears his throat and looks anywhere but Hajime. He turns around, walks the few paces it takes until he reaches his desk, and places his laptop down on it. “The second condition,” he says, still facing away from Hajime. There are amaryllises in his hair, along with a few pink roses running down the length of his neck. His hands move down his body to clutch at the hem of his sweater. “Is that… I get to kiss you… at least once.”

Hajime snorts, even though he can feel blood rushing to his cheeks, too, can hear the hiss of steam as he heats up. “‘Course,” he replies, voice barely above a murmur. “We can do that more than once, you know.”

Tooru turns around, hope shining in those beautiful eyes like the moon above their heads. “Really?”

Hajime nods, not really trusting his voice at the moment. Tooru smiles, sheepish, a few more pink roses blooming along the curve of his cheeks, tiny, tiny flowers accentuating the depth of his blush.

“Then let me get dressed.”

Hajime nods, sitting himself down on Tooru’s desk chair. When Tooru stands there, face red, staring at him, small narcissus flowers lining the back of his hands. Hajime cocks his head, confused. “What,” he deadpans.

“Privacy?” Tooru replies, hands nervously wringing his shirt again. With each shift of tendons beneath his skin, yellow petals fall to the floor in a graceful tumble. Hajime eyes him dubiously.

“I stuck my dick in your—“

“I _know_ , Iwa-chan!”

“And you still want privacy?!”

“ _Yes_!”

Hajime, fighting the grin threatening to take over his face, turns the chair around, making a show to raise his arms above his head, before bringing them down to cover his eyes with his hands. There's something exhilarating about a flustered Tooru, no matter how he looks at it. He'd never, in his wildest dreams, make Tooru uncomfortable, but watching him squirm and his skin flush a bright red is the best thing that Hajime could ever ask for.

“Happy?”

“Yes!”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yes, well,” Tooru’s voice is muffled by what Hajime presumes is the shirt he’s trying to put on, “you want to take this idiot on a date, so what does that make you?”

“An even bigger idiot,” Hajime replies easily, from beneath his palms. Hajime wonders which one of them is the biggest idiot, though. There's a lot of their relationship that makes him reconsider, on a daily basis, why on Earth someone like Tooru would fall for him. His fingers smell like burnt coal, and he can't help the way his mind takes a hard turn left, to whether Tooru really does find it that bothersome, the difference in their status and in their magic. He'd never complained, but Tooru was also a master of disguise, in a way. It'd taken Hajime three weeks to figure out which of his smiles were hostile or other, fake or other, and he's sure that there are many more depths to Tooru that he still has to discover. 

Tooru continues his indignant squawking as he slides his pants on, unaware of Hajime’s sudden burst of self-consciousness. When he hears Tooru struggling with his shoes instead of his pants, Hajime decides to turn around, albeit hesitantly.

“So,” Tooru says, tying off his laces, “where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Hajime replies, feeling his cheeks tinge with carmine at the mere thought of where he plans to take Tooru. He gets up from the chair and walks toward the window. “You’ll like it, though.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Tooru replies sarcastically, and a freesia falls from his fingers to the ground. “After all, that’s what you said about the parties, and the karaoke, and—“

“Okay, okay,” Hajime interrupts, irritated, “I get it. You don’t believe me, that’s fine.”

He places both of his hands on the windowsill and begins hoisting himself over again when Tooru chuckles.

“What.”

“Well, I thought we could use the front door. You know, like civilised people.”

Hajime cocks a brow. “I thought your parents would kill you if they ever caught you with me.”

“They would,” Tooru replies, and his smile shifts, almost imperceptible, from amused to sad, “but they’re not here to catch you with me, so it doesn’t matter.”

“No caretaker?”

“He only works weekdays.”

Hajime doesn’t push. He doesn’t want that sad smile on Tooru’s face any longer, and so he gingerly drops down to Tooru’s bedroom floor again. “So… the front door?”

“I think that’d be best.”

Tooru opens the door to his room, making sure to flip the lights off the moment Hajime steps into the hall. They walk down a curved flight of stairs and into the wide entryway. The large double doors leading into and from Tooru’s house loom over the both of them. Tooru grabs a set of keys from a shelf, and jingles them as he waits for Hajime to finish admiring the interior of his house.

“By the way,” he says, as he pushes the wooden door open and lets Hajime step through first. Once Hajime turns around, standing at the edge of the porch, Tooru closes the door behind himself and locks it carefully. “I have to be back by 2 in the morning. I have violin," he says, placing the key into the pocket of his sweater.

“What, will they start suspecting something if you look like death?”

Tooru laughs. “An impossibility,” he states, and a rose sits on his cheek again, the pink of it faded beneath the moonlight, “because I can never look bad.”

Hajime snorts, a puff of smoke escaping his nostrils. “Right,” he says, thinking back to their first meeting. “Of course.”

“Don’t make fun of me!” Tooru whines, kicking the concrete beneath his feet, petulant.

“I’m not,” Hajime says, but from the grin on his face, and Tooru’s pout, they both know he’s lying. Tooru huffs, offended, and steps down the porch and onto the gravelly path leading to the front gates. They walk through the garden in silence, Hajime studying the way plants, and all life forms, really, seem to bend toward Tooru, almost reverent. A complete opposite from what nature does around him.

They walk through the gates and Hajime turns right, immediately heading to where he’s parked his bike. When he wraps his fingers around the handles, Tooru stops abruptly, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“What?” Hajime queries, confused. Tooru shakes his head, as if the motion would shake him out of whatever strange trance he was in.

“Well, you know, I was expecting a… motorcycle or something. That’s how these stories go, right?” Tooru gestures vaguely to the bicycle. “You know, the rich kid is forced on a terrifying motorcycle ride by the tattooed bad boy.”

“What the fuck are you on about,” Hajime deadpans. “Do I look like I can afford a motorcycle?”

Understanding dawns on Tooru. “Well, now that I think about it, that _is_ a major flaw in the general bad boy falls for rich kid trope.”

“Who says it’s not the rich kid falling for the bad boy?”

“Iwa-chan have you _looked_ at me?” Tooru presses a hand against his chest, eyes fluttering closed in a show of his apparently beauty. “You were wrapped around my little finger since the first second we met."

“If I remember correctly,” retorts Hajime, slinging a leg over the bicycle seat, “the first second of our meeting was right before you threw up on me, so no, I wasn’t exactly charmed by your presence.”

Even though Hajime doesn't particularly want to say it out loud, for fear of Tooru using it against him, it's terrifying, how right he is. Hajime will never admit it, just how charming the Tooru that he met was, despite the incident. Tooru had apologised, treated him like any other, dragged him back home and cleaned him up, all the while in a drunken stupor and fighting his own sickness. It was the first time someone from the upper rings had treated Hajime like a person, and he hasn't been able to forget Tooru's smile since then, the image burning itself into the back of his brain like his own fingers had burned the tiniest marks onto Tooru's thighs, days later. 

Tooru smirks, undeterred by Hajime’s apparent lack of interest in humouring him. “And yet the next party you were the one to approach me and take me to bed.”

“Not a bad choice, if you ask me,” Hajime calls out over his shoulder, grinning to himself when Tooru sputters, evidently unprepared for the compliment. A paradox, Tooru, suave and clumsy at the same time, flirtatious and reserved, introverted and yet outgoing. Hajime loves it, loves him, probably. He loves the feeling of Tooru trembling beneath his fingers just as much as he loves hearing Tooru's passionate rants about whatever TV show he's obsessing over. 

“Do you have a helmet?” Tooru queries, lightly placing his hands on Hajime’s shoulders for balance as he, too, moves to straddle the bike.

“Why the hell would I have a helmet?”

“Because riding a vehicle at fast speeds is dangerous?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Hajime argues.

“Which makes it twice as dangerous. I’m not riding this bike with you if you don’t have a helmet.”

Hajime sighs. “Then you can walk, because I didn’t bring any helmets.”

“Iwa-chan, it's basic roadside safety!”

“Yes, yes. I know. Totally irresponsible. I’m sorry.” He places his feet on the pedals, begins pushing against them. Tooru’s hold on his shirt tightens as they begin picking up speed, and Hajime's heart begins speeding up. “But we’ll survive. The trip isn’t long.”

Tooru’s arms snake around his waist, an indication that no matter how he feels about riding without a helmet, he will not let Hajime go. Hajime can feel Tooru press his forehead between his shoulder blades, can feel the vibrations of his whimpers through his chest, can smell the raspberry of his shampoo. As he'd promised, however, the trip is short. Hajime tries to control the speed of the bicycle according to Tooru’s whining behind him, and when they finally reach his wanted destination, he slows down enough to hear Tooru's breathing.

It’s a place that Hajime discovered a while ago, one that he has never shown anyone, one that he has made his sanctuary from a drunken father, and from the hand of the government bearing down on those with magic like him. The lake looks completely still, from where they stand, reflecting the night sky like an endless canvas, and Tooru inhales sharply at the sight.

“Where are we?” Tooru asks, voice surprisingly quiet in the absolute silence of the lakeshore.

“I told you it wasn’t a party.”

“You also told me I’d enjoy it,” Tooru retorts. “What is this place?”

“You _will_ enjoy it." Hajime pauses, suddenly uncertain. Would Tooru be alright with just this? With seeing who Hajime is without the comfort and solidarity that his friends provide? Without Matsukawa and Hanamaki's persistent teasing? Without Kuroo to engage Tooru in arguments about the disparity between their people when Hajime begins running out of conversation topics?

"This is where I come when I need to escape reality. You know, when things start getting hard and I just need to breathe for a moment.”

There's another small pause, and Hajime is almost scared to look at Tooru. _Pathetic,_ a voice in the back of his mind reminds him, and he squeezes his eyes shut, waits for Tooru's inevitable mocking. _You? Iwaizumi Hajime? This weak?_

"We all have those moments," Tooru murmurs, then.

Hajime's eyes fly open, and he whirls around to stare at Tooru in his surprise. Tooru, on the other hand, is covered in a multitude of flowers, cascading over him from head to toe, so many that Hajime can barely make out his expression. There are amaryllises, and pink roses, and freesias along his arms. Pansies peek from below the hem of his sweater and Hajime loses his breath looking at him. Just as he feels like he will burn from the inside out because of his magic, Tooru's is reacting just as strongly to the almost static energy of the emotions between the both of them. Clearing his throat, Hajime holds out his hand, waiting expectantly for Tooru to take it. 

It only takes Tooru a few moments of embarrassed sputtering before he latches on and looks away, more amaryllises blooming back to life along the curve of his forehead, obscuring his eyes from view.

“Honestly,” Hajime teases, even though he can feel smoke begin to mingle with his breath, “we’ve made out, shotgunned, even fucked, Oikawa, you should be able to hold my hand without internally combusting." After a moment of thought, he adds, as if to lighten the heavy weight of the air on his shoulders: "That’s my job.”

When Hajime tilts his head back to gauge Tooru's reaction, he is glaring off to the side, lips set in a pout and red roses sprouting from beneath his collar. Small droplets of blood, from the thorns lining the edge of the rose stems, pool inside his clavicle.

“There’s something different about doing physically intimate things without romantic attraction involved,” says Tooru, quietly. As he speaks, the roses beneath his chin bloom wider, large petals unfurling to reveal the heart within.

It’s Hajime’s turn to blush, steam erupting from the skin of his hands, and Tooru jolts at the sudden change in temperature, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. Hajime turns back around, coughing into his fist. The confirmation of their mutual attraction is something that sends Hajime's pulse rocketing skyward. _He loves me_ , he thinks. _Just as I love him._

“You’re right,” he replies, because Tooru is.

No matter how entranced Hajime had been by Tooru after their first encounter, he believed his attraction to be purely sexual. Then, Tooru had uttered his first ‘Iwa-chan’ between kisses, and Hajime had been done for. No matter the walls that stood between the both of them, somehow, somehow they climbed over them together and managed to spend time in each other's presences.  Now, now Tooru is Hajime’s whole world, and with the sudden realisation comes the vision of a smile like a black hole, and a silken voice whispering ' _little warrior_ ' in his ear. He freezes, barely noticing when Tooru crashes into his frame. 

" _Oof!_ Iwa-chan, are you okay?" 

Hajime, dazed, belatedly nods, even as Tooru ducks into his vision, curiosity written on his every feature. "Yeah," he says, but his voice is rough, as if his throat was parched.

 

_ is this what love is supposed to feel like? the little warrior asks. _

 

His hand unconsciously tightens around Tooru’s, and, in turn, Tooru squeezes his fingers back.

 

 

⚘

 

 

When Hajime comes to once more, he stands behind the sleek counter of a bar. Before him sit two used, emptied pints of beer, the foam still sticking to the inside of the glass, slowly dripping to the bottom. Hajime blinks rapidly to get used to the smoke hanging between him and the stage like a screen, to the heat of the dancers melding, meshing into each other, to the sound of heels clacking against the uneven wood of the dance floor and to the laughter echoing high above the singing. 

Even then, for the whole night, all Hajime can see, has been able to see, will be able to see, is the singer on stage.

Tooru has his arms held out by his sides as he holds a note, voice loud, melodious, beautiful, running along the skin of Hajime’s arms and gathering like static at the base of his skull, a vibration that has Hajime wanting to barrel through the crowd and grab Tooru by the back of the neck, fingers digging into the soft curls there, to drag him into a searing kiss. 

But this is not the right time. For now, Hajime belongs behind the counter, whereas Tooru belongs on stage, hooded eyes and lips moving around foreign words, voice charming audiences, night after night, and all Hajime can do is cling to the memory of what those lips feel like against his own.

The piano reaches a crescendo, notes climbing along with Tooru’s staccato notes and Hajime feels sound and static alike trickle down his spine and spread across his skin as a pleasant warmth, like slowly submerging himself in bath water. Someone in his peripheral vision flags him down for another whiskey, and without taking his eyes off of Tooru, he whips a tumbler from the shelf and pours the amber liquid into it. Some sloshes onto his fingers, but he pays no mind to it, instead slides the glass over to the waiting customer, eyes still trained on Tooru.

“Thanks Iwa,” the customer — a regular, Hajime realises — shouts over the music, and Hajime nods his acknowledgement. His first instinct is to correct him, but after a second thought Hajime reminds himself that he’s supposed to have gotten used to the Americans cutting his name short in order to make it easier to pronounce. He's supposed to have stopped taking offence in people calling him _Iwa_ and _Hajime_ all the same, despite the fact that his name belongs on Tooru's lips, in Tooru's silvery voice, only.

It’s cultural, they tell him. 

_Yeah right._

Tooru’s hands have moved to clutch the microphone as he sings the last few, soft notes of the song, and Hajime finds himself flying through the evening sky, clouds between his fingers and starlight on his back. Then, Tooru's voice fades down and out, dropping into heavy silence as the dancers slow down, too. At the same gentle speed that Hajime comes down from his high with, Tooru steps away from the microphone, greeting the cheering crowd with a soft bow and a blow of a kiss across the room. 

Hajime can feel it on his skin.

It takes Tooru a few hours before he steps out of the changing rooms backstage, giggling at something or other with the show’s pianist. Hajime knows him as Tetsu-chan, or Kuroo Tetsurou, a pianist just as Tooru is a singer, hardworking, not talented by any degree, master of all techniques and fluid in his playing. Tooru and him had developed a bond, a partnership of sorts, as two non-extraordinary and yet more than extraordinary musicians, taking down stereotypes left and right together about those lacking 'talent'. 

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru greets with a nod of his head. Hajime nods, finding it difficult to formulate even a word around someone as incandescent as Oikawa Tooru. It happens every night, and every night Hajime cannot get over just how _beautiful_ the man is. Words are difficult to conceive when every corner of his mind is occupied by the radiant smile aimed at him. “I’ll have the usual,” Tooru continues, used to Hajime’s frequent speechlessness around him.

Hajime nods, not trusting his voice, not just yet, anyway. Turning a glass over with one hand, Hajime begins pouring the required ingredients into the tumbler, eyes not leaving the mixing liquids, even as the smell of raspberry liqueur and mango tonic floods his senses, and Tooru begins talking to him about his day. 

His evenings often go down like this. It’s become a habit, really, one that Hajime is still not quite sure he is used to, with Hajime’s heart pounding into overtime as Tooru drawls on and on about everything and nothing, voice low and soft against Hajime’s skin, complementing any other music going on in the background. 

At the moment, Tetsurou’s returned to the stage, and is performing a solo act, smooth jazz rolling around the room in gentle waves, pressing into their muscles and relaxing the both of them.

“So then I told Tetsu-chan,” Tooru says, interrupting himself with a quick ‘thank you’ as he accepts his drink from Hajime and wraps his slender fingers around the glass, “I told Tetsu-chan to give me the damn spotlight for once in a while, jackass, and he decides to play the _most_ intricate solo while I was holding my note. Even the dancers stopped for a moment just to watch his fingers do their thing across the keyboard.”

“And however will you deal with that,” Hajime deadpans, having finally found his voice. That is also part of the pattern, and if Hajime had to be frank, it is his favourite part of their evenings together. When Tooru drops his stage persona to be who he truly is. 

Childish, competitive, whiny, Hajime’s. 

“I’m going to outdo him, obviously.”

Hajime snorts, nodding to another customer to indicate that he’s heard their order, and pulling out a clean glass. Tooru studies him as he mixes two liqueurs together, with eyes always curious and never dull. Hajime loves that about Tooru, the way he makes it seem like the most mundane thing Hajime can do is just as fascinating as Hajime finds the prospect of Tooru's very existence. 

“You always outdo him,” Hajime finally says, after sliding the glass to the waiting customer.

“In your eyes?”

Hajime flushes.

“In everyone’s eyes.”

Tooru hums. “I wonder which one is more important,” he muses, tapping his lip with a slender finger, before his eyes slide to meet Hajime’s. Hajime barely manages to catch the glass that he compulsively dropped at Tooru’s flirting.

“You’re an idiot if you think my opinion is the only one that matters.”

“Not the _only_ one,” Tooru says, leaning his elbows on the counter and pressing his chin against the top of his hand. He's smiling, one of the soft ones that he usually reserves for early Sunday mornings, when Hajime isn't working and Tooru isn't performing anytime that day. “Because everyone’s opinion of me matters. But yours is definitely the most important.”

Hajime chokes on his own spit, doubles over and presses a hand to his mouth to stop himself from spitting everywhere as he coughs. Tooru giggles maniacally above him, leaning back and clutching his stomach as if he'd just witnessed the funniest comedic act in the world.

“You’re ridiculous,” Hajime wheezes, when the coughing has died down and the tears at the corners of his eyes have dried out.

“Maybe, but you like me this way,” Tooru purrs, lids hooded and cheshire grin curling his lips. Hajime wants to kiss him, wants to whisper ' _I don't just like you, I love you'_. When Tooru grins next, something like the sun shines from behind his eyes, and a soft voice, coupled with the smell of raspberries and old cologne, whispers ' _Iwa-chan'_ from somewhere behind Hajime.

He turns around, confused, to find the source of it, but finds that his co-worker has long since left. Chalking it up to the acoustics of the bar, he turns around and pushes Tooru’s glass into his face, instead of kissing him. He earns himself a string of protests from Tooru as some of the drink sloshes over the rim of the glass and onto Tooru's chin.

“Deserved it,” Hajime says with a shrug. Tooru grumbles into glass, but slowly begins sipping at it, slowing down the pace of their conversation to study the people around him. Hajime watches the colourful lights of the bar light up Tooru’s eyes, watches red, green, blues all reflect in the amber as Tooru, in turn, watches people dance and hold conversations and flirt and kiss.

He’s beautiful this way.

“My flat?” Tooru suddenly speaks up, eyes still focused on a couple across the room, lips sealed and hands roaming across each other’s bodies. “Or yours?”

“Depends,” Hajime replies easily. “You want to have sex on linen or silk?”

Tooru barks out a surprised laugh, reaches across the counter to lightly slap Hajime on the shoulder. Hajime hides his grin behind his hand by pretending to wipe his face.

“You don’t even like sex,” replies Tooru, eyes finally leaving their mark to focus back on Hajime. “But I do want to spend the night with you, and silk has always been nicer on my skin.”

Hajime bids goodbye to a set of leaving customers, a group of confident young ladies dressed much too nicely to find worth in any man frequenting this bar. “Then yours,” he says once he’s turned back to Tooru.

Tooru grins, practically vibrating off his seat in giddiness, before he jumps off the stool in one fell swoop and picks up his coat. “I’ll meet you there, if that’s alright. I’ve got a few things to take care of backstage. Iwa-chan knows where to find me, doesn’t he? After all, I’m very,” he lowers his voice to a murmur, leaning across the bar, “very hard to forget.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Hajime squeezes his eyes shut, but a smile spreads across his face before he can do so much as pretend to be annoyed. When he opens them again, Tooru's disappeared amongst the crowd.

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

 

The next time Hajime blinks, he’s on a rooftop. The wind howls around him, rain pelting down on his skin like bullets, and he is disoriented, terrified, for a split second, before he finds him, bent over the railing and gazing into the abyss below. 

“Tooru?” Hajime calls out and the boy jumps and turns around, his face wet from more than just the rain, Hajime knows. The tears are because Tooru has lost, again. He's lost matches, lost to Ushijima, lost himself. 

“Go away, Iwa-chan,” Tooru’s pained whisper barely travels above the cacophony of rain landing against the glass panes atop the roof of the building, and hits Hajime straight in the chest. Hajime takes a hesitant step forward, watches Tooru’s hands tighten around the railing, pale knuckles whitening to an almost impossible degree beneath skin pulled tight across cartilage. 

“Don’t—“ Hajime begins, but at the sound of his voice, Tooru swings a leg over the railing. Hajime immediately takes a step back, still disoriented, confused. He can’t tell the time of day, the clouds hanging above their heads so dark, so heavy, that it could be either. He normally tells the time by Tooru's texts, and it's been so long since he last received one. 

The lights of the buildings around the both of them glare back at him like the ominous threat of a star-less night. 

“What are you doing?” he finally calls out, over the sound of the rain pelting down over the both of them. Tooru eyes him wearily, and his eyes are dull, no longer the brazen amber Hajime is so fond of. Hajime is familiar with the misery crawling like a monster behind those eyes, dulling their shine and taking away the one part of Tooru that has always burned brighter than the rest of them.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tooru bites, and his voice cracks on the last syllable, words breaking down between sobs. “I’m jumping," he takes a shuddering breath, gaze switching from Hajime to the concrete pavement below the both of them, "and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, so don’t try Iwa-chan. Spare yourself and walk back down the stairs.”

Hajime doesn’t reply, cannot reply, because Tooru’s words sharpen into a knife and tear straight into his heart, ripping it to shreds before he can even attempt to build up any kind of armour. In the time that it takes for him to recover from the blow, Tooru vaults over the railing, arms and shoulders bent back as he clutches onto the bars and the last thread of his restraint. 

“Tooru,” Hajime pleads, and the rain dripping from his fingertips feels almost like the blood gushing from his wounded heart. 

“There’s nothing,” Tooru chokes. “ _Nothing_ to live for.”

Hajime doesn't know what to say. 

He wants to tell Tooru that everything is okay, that everything _will_ be okay, if he just keeps working. But Tooru has worked so much already, has built himself up from scrapped parts and been broken down, again, and again. Glue can only keep a person together for so long, and their most recent loss was the final push needed to shatter him. For the first time in his life, Hajime doesn’t know which words he could say that would give Tooru the exact final push he needs to let go of the railing and plummet to his death, or which ones would make him reconsider his decision. 

“That’s not true,” he resigns himself to saying. “That’s not— that’s _not_ true.”

“I will _never_ be enough,” Tooru spits, letting go of the railing with one hand to gesticulate wildly, tipping his body over the edge of the building and Hajime can feel his heart skip every few beats, when Tooru leans a little too much, the angle of his body too sharp, too dangerous. Hajime wants him alive. Hajime wants him here.

He takes a step forward. He's much closer to the fence, now, close enough to grab it, should he wish to. “That’s not true,” he repeats. “You will always be enough. You'll always be _more_ than enough.”

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru’s face falls, his lips tug downward and his chin wobbles, “don’t."

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Don’t do this.”

Hajime feels his will solidify at the back of his throat, bile rising at the prospect of what he’s going to do. “You want to jump?” he says. “I’ll jump too.”

“N-No Iwa— Hajime, don’t,”

Hajime grips the railing.

“ _Hajime_!”

“Together. We’ve always done,” Hajime grunts as he hoists himself over the railing, “everything together. I don’t see why this has to be any different.”

He's not wrong. They were born a month apart, grew up together, started out playing volleyball together, had lost and won together, had cried, laughed, screamed together. And now, now it is sink or swim together. His heart hurts, his stomach is lurching and Hajime is sure that people are looking up now. Tooru’s apartment building has never been tall in the first place, and the bright blue of his practice shirt is not unnoticeable, easy to spot in the darkness of the world. A shout resonates from below and Tooru clutches onto the fence tighter than before. 

“Hajime,” he says, ever softly, and Hajime melts a little, because Tooru’s eyes are red, and his breath is hitching with held back sobs, and his hair, wet from the rain and from his tears, is sticking to his forehead. He has never been uglier, and yet never been more beautiful, because no matter how Hajime looks at him, he is gorgeous, he is ugly, he is Tooru.

He is the most beautiful person Hajime knows.

“Together,” Hajime bites, letting go of the railing with one hand, extending it toward Tooru. 

“Don’t,” Tooru pleads, backing away from Hajime's outstretched hand. “Don’t do this to me.”

“What, so you’re allowed to do this to me, and I’m not allowed to do it to you?”

“It’s different!”

“Different _how_?!"

“Different because you have so much to live for—“

“Not if you’re dead, Oikawa.”

A life without Tooru is a life without colour, no matter how he looks at it. Without the little splashes of brightness brought along by the shine in Tooru's eye, by the glint of his smile, by the way even his voice seems to bring the sun out on the darkest of Hajime's days. _Love, love, love, the sky choruses above him._ Tooru uses his free hand to clutch Hajime’s sleeve, tugging ever so softly. Hajime stares back at him, gaze steely, and he dares to hope that what he sees behind the amber of Tooru's eyes is reconsideration.

“On three,” Hajime says, heart pounding in his ears, louder than the rain, his blood rushing through his veins as fast as the adrenaline, making static gather at the tip of his fingers, making his legs shake and his chest heave.

“No,” Tooru whispers. 

“One,” Hajime counts, nonetheless. 

“No,” Tooru repeats, louder this time. 

“Two,” Hajime continues. Tooru’s grip on Hajime’s sleeve tightens, and pulls him back, slightly. 

“Iwa-chan, please,” Tooru pleads. 

“Three,” Hajime whispers to himself, letting go of the railing and propelling his body forward. His stomach plummets at the sight of the floor, so far away from him. Before he can so much as find himself parallel to the concrete pavement, a hand on the back of his shirt latches on tightly and pulls him backward with as much strength as Tooru can muster. His shoulders slams against the barrier, knocking the breath out of his lungs, and then Tooru is vaulting over the railing, his hand still tightly wrapped into the back of Hajime’s sopping wet t-shirt.

Hajime looks back at him, over his shoulder. Tooru is shaking, visibly, from head to toe. His hair sticks to his forehead, and he cannot stop sobbing for long enough to close his mouth. Hajime sees drool dribbling down his chin, but in his elation, seeing Tooru on the other side of that fence, _safe,_ makes this moment the most beautiful moment of his life. 

“Tooru,” Hajime says, and his hands shake as he grabs onto the rail and climbs over it. 

“H-Ha-jim-me,” Tooru manages, through sobs. He takes a few steps forward, until he is pressed against Hajime, his only source of warmth, and begins pawing at Hajime’s shirt, hands smoothing over the soaked fabric along his shoulders, and down his chest. “D-Don’t e-ever do som-something like tha-at again.”

“Only if you promise the same,” Hajime chokes, and oh, he’s crying too, has been crying for a while. He’s lost feeling in his face, anxiety and fear and adrenaline alike numbing every part of his body but his heart, which he holds out, lifts up with all of his strength and gives to Tooru for the taking. “I can’t lose you.”

_Because I love you,_ someone, not Hajime and yet, entirely Hajime, whispers from the skies above them.

“You won’t,” Tooru murmurs, accepting Hajime's gift with open arms and teary eyes, pressing his face into the crook of Hajime’s neck. His breath smells like raspberry toothpaste. “You won’t.”

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

 

And, another

 

_Hajime shuffles awkwardly in front of the deity._

_“I don’t—“_

_“As I said: you will understand, in due time,” it interrupts. With a flick of its wrist, a young boy, built from starlight, is brought to life before Hajime. His grin is wide, his eyes twinkle, and there is a gap between his teeth that exposes a heart as bright as the sun. An inspiration to others, an ambitious little one, a born leader._

_“Do you know who he is?” the deity queries._

_“Yes,” Hajime replies, and startles at the speed at which he answered. He knows for a fact that he has never, in his conscious life, seen the boy before._

_“And yet you do not know who he is.”_

_“That’s… true.”_

_The deity cocks its head, amusement tucked away in the curled corners of its lips. “But you love him.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And you will love him, through thick and thin.”_

_Hajime almost replies that he will, immediately. His first instinct is to say yes, and yet the rational part of his brain, that which is still awake, argues that he has never in his life met the little boy, could not possibly be in love with a child._

_“…Yes,” he still replies, because dishonesty seems impossible in front of a being like the one lounging before him._

_“What is his name?”_

_“Oikawa Tooru.”_

_“His favourite food?”_

_“Sweet breads.”_

_“His age?”_

_“12 here, 18 there, 67 over there,” Hajime responds, pointing right, first, then left, then behind the celestial being, in directions that he does not know._

_A pause. only an invisible breeze fluttering through the empty space between them, the deity’s robes innocently lifting off its shoulders, only to reveal darkness, emptiness. There is nothing, as there should be. There should be nothing because Hajime knows nothing about the boy._

_“How… how do I know that?”_

_“It is knowledge,” the entity states, “accumulated by the events of the past, of the future, of the present. A whimsical little soul, this Oikawa Tooru, and yours, Iwaizumi Hajime, strong, steady, ever accounted for and always by his side. Sometimes a loyal knight, sometimes a lover, sometimes a fated enemy, and yet always a goal, a rival, someone that shakes Oikawa Tooru to the very depths of his core and allows him to be a better version of himself. Such is the power of the magic between the both of you.”_

_“I…”_

_“You will love him, will you not?”_

_“Of course,” Hajime says, but not with his mouth, he knows, because his lips are pressed in a tight line across his face. Even so, his voice echoes around the empty space around them, disturbing stars and planets alike, and he jolts, surprised at the honesty of his heart, versus the facts that his brain insists Hajime must stick to. The being before him scoffs, tiny specks of stardust billowing from between its misshapen and yet beautiful lips._

_“Then, I claim once again, such is your life. A whimsical soul tied to an ever present pillar. You are there, and you are not, and yet, you love him, and you will keep loving him.”_

 

 

⚘

 

 

When Hajime opens his eyes, his back is pressed to the wall of a building that has long since lived its purposed life, crumbled at the edges and a mere shell of what it used to be. To his right, Tooru sits, abdomen pressed to the floor and legs lifted into the air, kicking around as he studies the ruined world before them. Hajime glances down at himself, at the bits of metal and fabric, all brought together by Tooru into a makeshift suit of armour. His hand — gloved — is tightly wrapped around around the barrel of a shotgun, a powerful weapon, made twice as powerful by Tooru, yet again. 

Same as him, really.

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says. His eye is pressed to the scope of his rifle, and Hajime has half a mind to tell him that it’s going to leave a strange mark along the soft curve of his cheek. Tooru shifts, slightly, tilts the gun to the right to get a better look at a movement somewhere in the horizon, a movement that even Hajime’s trained eye cannot see. 

Hajime checks their surroundings once more before he turns his full attention to Tooru. “What?”

“Do you think—” and this time, Tooru pulls back, fingers moving away from the trigger and to the barrel. Hajime remembers how Tooru built the gun, with deft fingers tinkering with it for days in their hideout, before he’d managed to so much as garner enough power into the weapon to call it a ‘gun’. “Do you think we’ll ever see the end of the wasteland?”

“Depends,” Hajime replies, giving Tooru a single-shouldered shrug. “Maybe in other countries, there’s no wasteland.”

“Hard to imagine, no?”

“Yeah.”

Tooru smiles, practiced hands and nimble fingers deftly taking his weapon apart. Hajime raises the bag he is holding and helps Tooru carefully store away the scavenged parts of his sniper rifle, broken parts of machines from a once prosperous world put together to destroy, to kill, to protect.

“They say a person walked out of Vault 111. A person from before the Great War,” Tooru continues, eyes full of wonder as he twists the barrel to unscrew it. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Another Vault dweller?” Hajime queries, eyes shifting to the dark blue suit beneath Tooru’s leather armour. Tooru shrugs, wry, underfed muscles shifting beneath the fabric.

“I wonder how they’re feeling,” he breathes, nails tapping against the metal of the rifle’s grip.

Hajime thinks about it for a second. It's hard to imagine the world from before, when the trees were green like on packaging and when the sky wasn't a strange shade of yellow.

“Devastated, probably," he answers.

Tooru snorts, popping the magazine out and taking a quick glance into it, making sure the different bullets he’d scavenged from bodies, bandits, mutants alike are still all there. It's a habit he’s picked up from years of having to defend himself on a limited bullet count. “I heard they joined the band of good-doers out there. What’re they called again? They were named after some kind of American philanthropic movement.”

“The Minute... minute something." Hajime shrugs, having forgotten the name, and Tooru whines as the contents of the bag rattle with the movement of his arms. "So that’s who’s been walking around helping different settlements.”

“Do you want to join them, Iwa-chan?” Tooru’s voice is lilted in a tease. “Get your fair share of good karma in this wretched land, full of cruelty and murder?” Hajime scowls.

“Of course not, idiot,” he growls, feeling his fingers twitch around the shotgun’s barrel with restless abandon. “People like us can’t be put on a moral leash like that.”

Tooru laughs, a little breathless. “Hajime-kun’s scary when he goes full-on guard dog mode.”

A full body shiver runs through Hajime’s body at the sound of his first name being spoken from Tooru’s lips. He straightens his back, partly to glance out the window, partly to hide the blush flooding his cheek.

“I take it he’s dead?”

“Dead and gone,” Tooru says, striking a pose and winking at Hajime, embodying the token model of a carefree waste-lander Hajime knows he isn't. “He dropped and he hasn’t gotten up in the past,” he presses a button on the Pip-Boy fastened to his wrist, watches the screen come to life in a flash of code, “2 hours. I’d say he’s dead.”

“Surprised none of his men have noticed yet.”

Tooru laughs, again, raising a hand to wipe the grime from his face, and Hajime falls just that little bit more in love with him. “Well, he’s in his office.” He then taps the barrel of his rifle. “And this baby’s got a real nice suppressor.”

Hajime feels a semblance of pride at Tooru’s unmatched accuracy. Despite the looks of his gun, pieced together and tinkered with over the past few years, Tooru’s engineered weapon is one of the most powerful this side of the wasteland.

Hajime eyes the horizon, the sun beginning to set. “Can we make it to Goodneighbor before sundown?”

Tooru squints, eyes not adjusted to the brightness of the outside, before he shakes his head. “We should camp out here, soon.”

Hajime nods, and they both make their way out of the ruin.

After finding an appropriate camping spot, when the sun has begun setting and the horizon echoes with the grunts and gnashes of ghouls, Hajime unrolls the makeshift blanket from his backpack, sets it on the floor of the ruined gas station and watches Tooru flick a few matches into the dry wood they’d gathered. He watches as the flames come to life and light up Tooru’s face in a bright orange glow, shadows dancing across soft cheekbones and lighting a spark in his eye.

“Get into bed,” Hajime says, gesturing to the blankets at his feet. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Iwa-chan, such a gentleman,” Tooru teases, even as he drops, exhausted, into the pile of blankets. A fond smile crosses Hajime’s face when Tooru wraps himself in a cocoon, eyes squeezed shut and face set in an unconscious pout. Hajime knows Tooru’s day was much more tiring than Hajime’s own, standing watch for hours, face pressed into the scope of his rifle, finger readily pressed against the trigger, waiting for his target to show.

“Shut up,” Hajime grunts, nonetheless. Tooru giggles, one eye cracking open.

“Tell me a bedtime story, Iwa-chan.”

“Fuck off.”

Tooru laughs, this time, back slightly arching off the floor. “No, I’m serious! I can’t go to sleep yet.”

Hajime knows. The nights after a successful mission are nights of fear, guilt, and resentment, festering, crawling inside Tooru and eating him from the inside, a sickness taking hold of his heart and squeezing it until it hurts too much for him to breathe. He's killed yet another person, today, and no matter their corruption, no matter how many bottle caps their client is willing to pay, nothing is worth the amount of damage that Tooru's psyche takes after each mission. 

“What story do you want to hear, dumbass? You were there for everything interesting that's ever happened to me.”

_Keep normal_ , he thinks. _Treat him like you would any other day_. 

“But _before_ I came out of the Vault,” argues Tooru, “you must’ve done something.”

Hajime flicks him on the forehead. “We met when I was 11. Before that it was just scavenging and trying to live off pickpocketing people in Diamond City. Not that much of a story to tell.” He’s not lying. The most interesting thing to have ever happened to him was finding a boy of the same age as him, cowering in a too-large vault suit, the numbers 114 in bright yellow stitched across his back. Hajime had watched him clutch a rusted pipe and fend off an entire pack of ghouls on his own, before he'd snapped out of his daze and had jumped in to help.

Hajime had fallen in love then and there, really. Tooru made his life infinitely more colourful, infinitely more musical and definitely more interesting. Hajime barely finds himself considering what his life was like prior to meeting him, because there was nothing, he was nothing. Now he means something, to someone, to his entire world. Losing Tooru would be like losing part of himself, what makes him better, what makes him who he should be and who he tries his damnedest to be.

“That’s true,” Tooru concedes. There’s a lull in their conversation. Tooru fiddles with the frayed edges of the blanket and Hajime watches the horizon for any hostile parties. After a while, Hajime sighs. He can practically feel the restless energy emanating from Tooru, coming off of him in waves with each of his quiet sighs, with each shift of his legs beneath the quilts.

“What are you thinking about?” he queries.

“I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“The Vaulter?”

“Yeah.”

“What about her bothers you so much?”

“Can you imagine getting out of a Vault and just… waking up to this? To the Prefecture?”

Hajime shrugs. He doesn't know. Unlike Tooru, he didn't go through the environmental change. He was born in Diamond City, raised in Diamond City, orphaned in Diamond City.

“What I mean is… it was a shock for _me_ to find out what the world looked like when I first ran away from Vault 114. My teachers told me that the world above ground had been ruined, but the most information I had on the world above us came from pre-war books without pictures. I had never seen the world above ground before going out, so nothing I could have imagined would be out there in the first place. But this? Going into a Vault when the world was what it was before the war, and coming out to this?”

Hajime hums. “If you take the pictures on packages for granted, the world must’ve been so beautiful, before.” 

Tooru nods. “Exactly. I can’t imagine waking up to whatever the hell Japan’s become after the war.”

“That’s not what’s bothering you though, is it.” Hajime doesn’t phrase it like a question, because it isn’t. He’s simply giving Tooru an out, should he need it, but he also knows that Tooru’s mind is fixated on something other than the idea of waking up and walking out into the wasteland entirely unprepared. Talking has always helped him.

“You’re right,” Tooru admits, after a while. “When we were in Goodneighbor to take the job, while you were discussing prices, I saw her.”

“Oh.”

“She asked me if I’d seen Izumi.”

Hajime shudders at the mention of the mercenary’s name. They’d only ever once run into the man, Tooru having taken the same job as him by mistake, and had barely gotten out of the situation alive. Hajime still has the scars to prove it, along the length of his torso and over the jut of his hip. Tooru still looks at them, when they bathe together in clean water, rage and guilt flickering over his face like a malfunctioning lightbulb. No matter how much Hajime reassures him that he would get them 100 times over, if it meant that Tooru could continue living, there are still nights when Hajime feels Tooru's tears drip along the curve of his neck, feels calloused fingers tracing the mangled skin.

_ "I love you,"  _ Tooru would whisper to him on nights like this, lips pressed against the dip between Hajime's shoulder blades, and Hajime would always see stars behind his eyes, the amused smile of someone not quite from this world ripping the sky of his dreams in half.

The fire crackles and startles the both of them, Tooru’s hand unconsciously reaching for the pipe gun at his side. Hajime jumps to attention, checks their surroundings once more. When he’s sure that the shadows in the horizon are but ruined buildings and tree stumps, he lets himself relax once again.

“And?”

“He killed her husband,” Tooru continues, and Hajime’s jaw drops open in surprise. “He killed her husband and took her baby. She’s out to find him, most likely for revenge.”

Hajime shuts his mouth with an audible click. "Well," he says. "That's the most she can do, isn't it? There's a very low chance that a toddler, or a baby, survived any trip with Izumi." He pauses, gauging Tooru's lack of reaction as something negative. “What did you tell her? We haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Thank God for that, too,” Tooru sighs, burrowing himself further into the blankets and against Hajime’s legs. “I told her that we’d keep an eye out for him, since we’re in and out of Goodneighbour so much. She’s apparently getting along with Ukai-san, so she’s going to start frequenting it too. We'll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

Hajime hums. “What about her story scared you so much? It’s not like murder and kidnappings are uncommon around here. I don’t see how her situation is any different.”

“You're right, but it hasn’t happened to anyone around us,” Tooru explains. “She’s so close, she was in a damn _Vault_ and they still managed to take her baby and kill her husband. It made me realise just how fickle— I don’t want him to— I’m scared that—“

“Tooru.”

_ I _ _know._

Tooru turns to him, eyes glassy and full of tears. His voice wavers on the next few words. “I don’t want to lose you. Ever. To the Institute, to Izumi, to the Brotherhood, to the wasteland—“

“Tooru.”

_ I _ _**know.** _

Tooru stops, sniffles. One of his hands peeks out from beneath the bunched blankets to wipe at his cheeks, smearing dirt beneath his eyes. “I know I often do stupid things, and that makes me seem like I don’t, but I _need_ you, Iwa-chan, and if I lose—"

“Tooru!” Hajime barks, and Tooru recoils, eyes screwed shut. “Tooru,” Hajime repeats, softer this time, treading his dirty fingers through Tooru’s tangled hair, “I know. I _understand_ , okay? And I can tell you this: as long as you’re alive and breathing, you will not lose me.”

And despite the fact that he cannot hold his promise, not in a world that is out to kill the both of them before they even reach the age of 50, the words themselves are as honest as Hajime will always be around Tooru. He dips down, nuzzles Tooru's hairline and it smells like the canned mangoes that Tooru loves eating so much. Hajime feels like the stars above their heads are laughing at the both of them, with their empty promises and their tearful confessions.

“Promise?” Tooru queries, unaware of Hajime's internal turmoil. His bottom lip wobbles. 

“Promise,” says Hajime, and when he presses his mouth to Tooru’s, he tastes raspberry on his tongue.

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

 

Maybe, an explanation: 

 

_“That makes no sense.”_

_“Perhaps not,” the deity declares, shifting, long legs disrupting the robe of nothing draped across its body. Hajime watches stars tumble down the graceful curve of cloth, watches them pool around its feet and create yet another galaxy, entirely new, clusters of jewels large and small spinning around each other in a slow waltz. “And yet it does.”_

_“Can you make yourself clear,” Hajime growls, with his mouth this time, irritated. He crosses his arms, tilts his head. The change in angle seems to shift the deity’s form into something more angular than curved. “Otherwise I’d like to wake up.”_

_“Unfortunately, this isn’t a dream,” it places the glass down on yet another invisible platform, empty eyes twitching as it watches the liquid swirl within the glass, a galaxy contained within the hands of another galaxy, a familiar pattern of skies and stars turned liquid and intoxicating._

_“Then what’s the point of this?”_

_“To bring him back to Earth? To find yourself? To tie Oikawa Tooru, wandering soul and ever changing personality, to the place where he belongs? To experience your life as it could have been and never will be?”_

_The celestial body picks up its glass again, takes a long sip. Hajime watches the starlight shine through its skin as it swallows, watches the soft orange glow, muted by the darkness of its skin, move along the blue sheen of its throat and chest, until it disappears beneath the rippling robes._

_“Or perhaps,” a grin splits its lips, exposing its black hole of a mouth behind twinkling, sharp teeth, and Hajime can feel the force of it pulling him forward, “perhaps I am simply testing the bonds of inseparable souls, as an all seeing, all capable deity bored with my ever lasting existence and wanting to explore a magic that even I cannot control.”_

_Hajime narrows his eyes. Alright, so this guy is an asshole, and the only thing Hajime can possibly do is humour it. In response to Hajime’s lasting silence, the celestial being clears its throat, places the glass back down and Hajime watches it float, slowly, away from the both of them._

_“What’s that, then?” Hajime asks._

_“It is a potent magic. It is strong and yet it fades just as quickly as it appears. It ties people together, and it tears them apart. It can cause rampant destruction just as much as it can build the most beautiful things. It has the ability to influence events much like any force that you would consider supernatural, out there, in the **real**_ _world,_ _and yet, it is the most mundane of things. It is considered mysterious, but it is one of the most studied magics out there.”_

_The deity turns its empty eyes to Hajime._

_“Some people feel it too much, some people do not feel it at all. And all that aside,” it says, “it is hard to find it as strong as it is within you.”_

_“So what’s the truth?” Hajime questions._

_“The truth, Iwaizumi Hajime, is that you are in love.”_

_“The truth for why the hell I am here.”_

_The deity huffs. “I believe I have made myself clear,” and their statement is echoed by a familiar yet entirely new voice calling out ‘Iwa-chan!’ into the empty air between them. Hajime takes a step back, and it smells of raspberries, suddenly, raspberries and mint chapstick, and mango shampoo, and cheap cologne, and Hajime feels warmth seeping into his cheeks and down his neck, a burning blush as he feels the ghost of a hand on his chest and fingers intertwining between his own._

_“Go, then,” the cosmic deity flicks its wrist, and the stars like jewels around it jingle, twinkling starlight taking form in sonic waves. “Be in love, little warrior.”_

 

 

⚘

 

 

A blink, and Hajime finds himself in the hallway of an apartment he somehow knows. It feels like it is his first time stepping into the corridor and yet, everything around him is as familiar as if he’d lived here for years, despite the fact that he doesn't know where 'here' is. He takes a quick glance at the photos lined up on the wall, framed carefully and with love, and at his own smiling face, pressed up against Tooru’s.

_Ah_ , Hajime thinks.

“Well maybe if you weren’t such an asshole, I wouldn't have to act like this!” Suddenly, Tooru’s voice erupts from a room to Hajime’s right, and he flinches, wondering whether the accusation is aimed at him.

The door to the room bursts open, and Tooru abruptly storms down the hallway. Hajime panics, does not know where to step to prevent Tooru from barrelling straight into Hajime’s form.

“To—“ he begins, an explanation, perhaps even an excuse, he’s not quite sure, already at the tip of his tongue, but Tooru simply walks on, face set into an angered snarl and—

 

straight through Hajime.

 

With a small shout of surprise, Hajime jumps to the side, finds himself phasing through the wall and into a bedroom, only to end up standing before the source of Tooru’s anger. The man, a complete stranger to Hajime, has got his fists tightly balled up at his sides and his whole frame is shaking with barely repressed anger.

Hajime glances down, at the see-through qualities of his own form, and the memories come flooding back, from the blinding flash of headlights to the searing pain across his body. “No,” he whispers, as though the mere utterance of that word would change the reality around them. Tooru’s current lover, Hajime figures, and it pains him to even think it, growls something intelligible, before he opens the door and calls after Tooru. 

“Maybe if you weren’t such a self-centred brat, and started considering my feelings, for a change!” The stranger, tall and wearing a terrifying scowl, calls out after him. Tooru replies with a sarcastic ‘ _Hah_!’, but doesn’t grace the man with another response.

“He’s fucking gone, Tooru!” the stranger keeps going. “Gone! Dead! His funeral was three years ago! Time for you to fucking move on!”

“You don’t get to say that about Iwa-chan!” he hears Tooru screech, and then: “You don’t get to say _anything_ about Hajime!”

“Oh so I don’t get to talk about him, but you do!?” the stranger all but shouts. “It’s always about him _anyway!_ ”

The front door slams behind a fuming Tooru, cutting the argument short, and Hajime cringes when the stranger picks up a picture frame — one with Hajime’s portrait secured within it — and flings it across the room. Anger flares at the pit of his stomach as he hears the glass break, and he resists the urge to pick it up himself, knowing he won't be able to touch it, anyway. “Fuck you,” he hears the stranger hiss, at something, someone in the room, perhaps himself, even.

_Fuck you too,_ Hajime thinks.

The man rummages through his and Tooru’s shared closet, whips out a duffel bag and begins hastily stuffing his clothes into it. He seems to have little care for the neatness of it all, and when he closes it up, he catches the end of a sock in the zipper. Instead of stuffing it back into the bag, he simply tears through the article of clothing with a growl and a show of brute force.

He stands up, and takes one last glance around the room. He hasn’t taken his toiletries, Hajime notices, nor has he packed enough underwear for more than three days. It becomes clear to him that the stranger has no intention of staying away from the flat. For what reason, he doesn’t quite know. Perhaps because the flat belongs to him, or perhaps because he isn’t immune to Tooru’s magnetic qualities. No matter how much he may be angry at him, the stranger will never be able to find someone better than Tooru.

This, Hajime understands. There isn't anyone on the planet worth more than Tooru.

The stranger takes a final glance at the ruined picture frame of Hajime’s portrait, inhales deeply, and makes his way out of the apartment. Hajime cringes as the door slams behind him, but does not even have the time to turn around and study the apartment before it’s clicking open again.

Except, this time, Tooru is the one to step through. If Hajime was capable of breathing, or perhaps, if Hajime’s heart was beating, he knows his breath would have audibly hitched, his heart skipped a few beats.

Tooru’s eyes are rimmed red, and he sniffles as he makes his way down the hall and into the bedroom. Immediately, his gaze lands on the ruined frame containing Hajime’s picture and he hisses profanities under his breath. He picks it up, with shaking fingers, and the moment his gaze lands on Hajime's face, a sob rips through his body just as violently as it rips through Hajime’s heart.

Tooru slinks out of the room, shoulders slumped and heart heavy, and settles himself in a plush love seat in the living room.

Hajime takes the time to trail the hallway of the apartment, studying the pictures of a better time, when Iwaizumi still walked the Earth as a living being, when Tooru’s laughter wasn’t strained and when his relationship wasn’t frayed at the edges, threatening to pull apart thread by thread and leave him with only half of what he’d started with.

Although, perhaps, Hajime thinks, perhaps Tooru will never be whole again.

His eyes land on a photo, one that he clearly remembers taking, and something within his chest feels like it's bursting.

The photo is a simple one, taken by Tooru, from their trip across France. It was taken when they were in the Alps, where Tooru had seen piles of snow as tall as himself for the first time.  Tooru has a thick scarf wrapped around his neck, that Hajime's own mother had knitted for him, the Aoba Jousai colours always looking so good on him, and Hajime has a beanie placed on his head, handpicked by Tooru, the pompom atop it a blur. Hajime remembers that day very clearly, the wind had been whipping so hard around them that the pompom wouldn’t sit still, and it’d almost ripped off before they’d reached their hotel.

He looks back at Tooru, curled up in the love seat and snivelling, and wishes he could go back in time, wishes he could prevent his accident and wishes he could stay with Tooru forever, because no matter what brought him back here, it’d be much easier to love Tooru with a physical body than it is to love him as an outside spectator into his life.

He turns to the pictures once more, eyes landing on another photo of the both of them, Hajime’s trademark frown present on his face and Tooru’s grin too bright for the rainy Paris weather they were stuck in, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Hajime huffs out a small laugh, and smiles at the memory.

Hajime is, in all honesty, surprised that Tooru has kept the pictures.

Their trip to Paris had been filled with kisses under the rain, with failed attempts at speaking French and with eating the craziest dishes they could find. He clearly remembers Tooru’s face when he was served a plate of snail shells and was kindly told ‘ _bon appetit_ ’, by the waiter. Hajime’d laughed like a hyena until they’d served him his own plate of steamed frog legs, and it had been Tooru’s turn to laugh at Hajime’s horrified expression.

The dishes didn't taste as bad as they originally seemed, and Tooru had 32 new pictures on his Instagram by the time they were done with their meal.

They’d run under the rain for more time than not, had held each other’s hands as they walked through the Louvre, had hidden within the security of churches from thunderstorms and had kissed on the Notre Dame’s doorstep.

They’d been happy.

His gaze trails from that picture, to the photo of the both of them in pink and yellow Hawaiian shirts, standing on the beaches of Normandie, the bright colours of their outfits a complete contrast to the pallor of the sand, to the ominous constructions left over from the second world war. They’d been told numerous times that the weather would be warm, and had instead found themselves caught between freezing breezes and unrelenting rainstorms. 

Hajime remembers when they took this picture though. The sun was shining high above their heads, and they’d whipped out their summer clothing faster than humanly possible, ecstatic at finally seeing the sunshine they’d so dearly missed. When they’d chosen to take the photo, Tooru still had a small droplet of salted caramel, from the crepes they’d eaten earlier, smudged above his upper lip.

Hajime’d kissed it off right after that. 

He turns back to Tooru, watches him hastily wipe his cheeks with the end of his sleeve. With an inaudible sigh, Hajime makes his way into the living room, to the love seat. He hesitantly reaches out, as if to card his hands through Tooru’s hair, to tell him that everything is alright and that even when they’re not together, they are, because Hajime would never, _ever_ leave him.

“Not even death can stand between the two of us,” Hajime says, bottom lip wobbling. He wonders whether he can cry when he is like this, because he most definitely feels like he might, right about now. His fingers touch the edge of Tooru’s cheek and phase right through him. They curl in on themselves, turning into a tightly clenched fist, and Hajime swears under the breath he no longer needs.

“I miss you,” Tooru says, to Hajime's portrait, and his voice is so small, folded in on itself like a piece of parchment and tucked somewhere within the confines of his voice box. "I wish you were here. I wish I wasn't alone."

_I am here_ _!_ Hajime wants to scream. _I'm right here._  


A droplet of blood slides down the glass, and Hajime finds himself thinking that if he’d been there, the real him, the true him, then he would’ve cleaned up the cut, wrapped a bandaid around it and kissed Tooru’s finger, gently, and then he would have kissed each and everyone of Tooru’s fingers, and then he would have pressed his mouth to Tooru’s palm and whispered ‘I love you’. Tooru would have giggled, would have called him 'silly, Iwa-chan' and would have cupped his cheek. They would have kissed, after that, lazy and comfortable and everything they were ever meant to be.

No, he realises, Tooru wouldn’t have cut himself if he’d been there. If he hadn’t left. And now, he isn’t there for Tooru, not the way Tooru needs him, no matter how strong their bond is. 

He cannot touch Tooru and he will never touch Tooru again. And so he whispers, a soft, final and yet never truly final, because his love for Tooru will never fade, no matter what stands between the both of them:

“I love you.”

Just as his lips finish moving around the words, lost in the breeze fluttering in from the open window, Tooru’s head snaps up.

“Iwa-chan?” he calls out, and then, eyes wide and jaw slack, Tooru’s gaze settles on Hajime.

_Strange,_ Hajime thinks in a voice that does not belong to him, that sounds much more ethereal, as wobbly smile takes over his face, and he whispers a soft ‘Tooru’, _what love can do._

 

 

⚘

 

 

Hajime blinks himself awake and sits up in a panic. Tooru’s hands fall from his hair and he watches Hajime with something akin to amusement shining in those amber eyes. 

“Are you feeling alright, Iwa-chan?”

“I—uh,” Hajime replies. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nightmare, or something.”

“You were just talking to me about the medicinal effects of some kind of plant from Nekoma, I can hardly believe you had a nightmare mid-sentence.”

Hajime looks at Tooru, and Tooru stares right back, the intimidating gaze of a prince versus the intense glare of his loyal protector. “It wasn’t an unconscious nightmare,” Hajime finally admits, averting his gaze. “I just…”

“Ah, I see,” Tooru says, and were it anyone else, Hajime wouldn’t believe that he understood, but this is Tooru, and just as much as Hajime knows everything about him, Tooru knows everything about Hajime. It’s a balance that is never tipping, because the both of them stand on equal ground, the same and yet complete opposites.

Hajime’s gaze slides to the pond next to them, to the murky water and the pale red and white flashes of koi fish swimming beneath the surface, pale like Tooru, white in a way that his skin shouldn’t be. 

They both know what Hajime is _really_ thinking about, even if Tooru avoids his gaze, now, and Hajime refuses to look at him for long enough to notice the dark shadows beneath his eyes, the way his fingers tremble and the way his breathing stutters with every inhale. 

“Oikawa-sama!” a voice echoes across the pond. Hajime’s grip tightens on the spear at his side, even as Tooru looks up and greets the messenger with a smile. It's only when he spots Tooru's usual messenger that Hajime lets it go. It's not uncommon, hasn't been for a while now, for assassins to try and get to the prince while he is at his weakest. He watches, intently, as Tooru turns his attention to the one who has just disturbed their fragile peace. “The King has requested your presence.”

“Of course,” Tooru replies, polite as ever. The messenger prostrates, pressing his forehead to the floor in a respectful bow, before he stands up and runs off. They both wait until he has scurried out of sight before Tooru even attempts to stand up. After his third failed attempt, his legs giving out on him, Hajime stands up at his side. He doesn't offer his help, knowing that Tooru would simply take the action as a sign of pity, and try to get through the rest of his day without Hajime close to him.

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, voice strained. “I believe I may need your help to stand up properly.”

“Yeah,” Hajime replies, offering the prince a hand. Tooru gingerly takes it, but lets go once he has stopped swaying, instead using Hajime’s shoulders to steady himself. Hajime cannot see it beneath the kimono, but he is aware of the shaking of Tooru’s legs, of the amount of strength that he is exerting just to stand upright. 

“I’ve been getting weaker by the day, haven’t I?” Tooru says, softly, a self-deprecating smile twisting his lips. 

“You’ll get better,” Hajime retorts. 

“Perhaps,” Tooru concedes, with a small nod of his head. “Let’s go.”

 

 

“It is not looking good,” the court herbalist admits in a hushed whisper. “Oikawa-sama’s condition seems to be worsening by the second, and the Lord has yet to take action.”

“Surely he wants his only child to stay alive,” argues Hajime, anger mixing with desperation in the tone of his voice like oil and water, both so obvious. “He has to have given _some_ kind of order.”

The herbalist’s lips pinch shut, stretched across his wrinkly face in a thin line. Hajime knows that he’s holding back an opinion that he must keep to himself until told otherwise, for fear of severe punishment. 

“You may speak freely in the presence of the prince,” Hajime grits, wanting to simply strangle this man for worrying about his own fate when that of Tooru’s rests in their hands. The herbalist releases a soft breath, and the tension along the line of his shoulders relaxes.

“I believe the Lord is all too happy to get rid of his son.”

The breeze flutters across the silent courtyard, and Hajime’s sleeves sway along with it.

“And what," Hajime asks, voice eerily calm compared to the fire boiling at the pit of his stomach, "pray tell, is his reason?”

The herbalist looks nervous, eyes flicking from side to side as he makes sure there are no eavesdroppers to tattle on them. “He thinks his son to be cowardly.”

“Cowardly?!“ Hajime pauses, takes a deep breath to subdue the anger roaring in his ears. When he has calmed down sufficiently, he lowers his voice to a hiss, leans into the herbalist’s personal space as if to make his point explicitly clear. He thinks of the people of Aoba Jousai, to their hopeful expressions as Tooru visits the streets, both rich and poor, of the city, promises on his lips and kindness at his fingertips. He thinks of the slaves Tooru liberated, thinks of the Mad Dog, quivering in anger within the confines of a cage, and now, a high ranking soldier within Hajime's ranks. All thanks to Tooru, this has been. “To express love toward the people of Aoba Jousai is not a sign of cowardice.”

Complicity glints in the herbalist’s gaze. “Then you and I see eye to eye, Iwaizumi-san.”

From within the prince’s chambers, Hajime can hear Tooru coughing. Desperation floods back through his veins, pushing his anger to the back of his mind as he turns his attention to the canvased doors. 

“Is there really _nothing_ I can do?” Hajime queries.

The herbalists’ jaw works as his mind churns over words. “There is _something_. I have heard, in studies of a distant past, of a plant that grows past the mountains of Datekou and in the kingdom of Karasuno. They are familiar with the ailment affecting our young prince, and know of a cure using these very herbs. I could make it myself, but—“

“But we do not have the plant itself.”

“Precisely. Trade routes with Karasuno have been interrupted ever since our prince…” The herbalist clears his throat, and Hajime remembers clearly, fear spiking through him like on that day. To think of Tooru as cowardly after an event like this was proof of the Lord's derailed judgement. “It is needless to say, they are not on friendly terms with us. Going would be… dangerous, at best."

“I’ll do it.”

“I must advise that you exercise extreme caution when crossing the Datekou mountains, but I cannot, and will not stop you,” the herbalist states. 

“I need him alive.”

“I believe the whole kingdom does,” the herbalist replies. “I believe the kingdom is in better hands with the prince around.”

The both of them pause, contemplating a rule without the promise of Tooru's succession. Tooru's father would most likely thrive in an environment without the threat of a rebellion or military coup to put Tooru on the throne. The people's hopes would die along with Tooru, and so would Hajime. There is no world where they live without each other, or at least, none that Hajime can imagine.

“I will… announce my departure to the prince,” Hajime eventually says, awkward, and the herbalist bows his farewells, before turning around and heading back through the courtyard. Hajime waits until his robes are completely out of sight before he faces the canvased doors of Tooru’s chambers.

When he slides the door open, he is greeted with the sight of Tooru laid on his futon, a blanket tucked under his chin and a cold towel pressed against his forehead. 

“The herbalist found a cure,” Hajime says, by way of greeting. “I’m going to go fetch it.” 

Tooru wheezes a soft exhale.

“Iwa-chan, I—“ Tooru’s interrupted by a string of wet coughs, and all Hajime can do is close the distance between the two of them with swift steps, kneel at his side and hold his hand, watch as his lover’s life seems to slip right between his fingers. “I have no delusions about the gravity of my situation.”

Hajime glares at him.

“Yes, you do, because you’re convinced you’re going to die when I’m making sure you’re going to live."

Tooru chuckles weakly. “You know, Iwa-chan, I always thought you were some kind of… higher being sent from above. A fearless protector. A _tennin_ , maybe. I sometimes feel like I must have done something incredible in a previous life, to deserve a companion like you.”

The confession startles a laugh out of Hajime. “Do I look like I can fly, idiot?” he retorts, but Tooru is shaking his head, and Hajime immediately stops smiling, because there are tears rimming Tooru’s eyes.

_I’m not a blessing to you, idiot_ , Hajime thinks. _How can I be a blessing when I’ve only been at my best with you around?_

“But if you were,” Tooru coughs again, “we’d be able to love each other without it being a secret, wouldn’t we?”

Hajime snorts. “Not that the need for secrecy has ever stopped you, Oikawa-sama.”

Tooru groans at the honorific. “Why must you call me that? We’ve been friends practically since birth, lovers for four years and I’ve been calling you ‘Iwa-chan’ for as long as I remember. Surely you can come up with something _better_ than ‘Oikawa-sama’.”

“To each our own stupid ways of referring to each other,” Hajime teases in return, although they both know that the moment Hajime drops the honorific, begins calling Tooru something a little more casual than as a revered prince, no matter their years of friendship behind them, the people of the court are going to start suspecting their relations. Tooru has always been a little more flamboyant, a little more flirtatious around men, and his father had never taken kindly to those aspects of his personality. The fact that Hajime is even allowed to remain as close to Tooru as he is now is a miracle in itself. 

Tooru’s face scrunches in a pout, one that has his bottom lip jutting out, slick from spit, and it is too adorable for Hajime not to bend down and kiss, contagion be damned. Tooru whines against his mouth, he always has been sensitive to any form of contact with Hajime, but when he attempts to raise his arms to wrap them around Hajime’s neck, they fall much before they can even reach their mark. 

“I am so _weak_ Iwa-chan,” he complains. As a response, Hajime simply picks up the cup of steaming tea by his side and hands it to him. He doesn't have any words. He fears that if he opens his mouth, then all of the emotional strength he has spend _days_ gathering will just pour out of it in a flurry of desperate words, begging Tooru not to leave Hajime behind in a world that would lose all shape and colour without him.

“I’m going to go looking for that cure today,” he resorts himself to saying, steeling both of their psyches.

Tooru huffs out a small laugh. “No, you’re not.”

“Ah,” Hajime says, “but I am, and in your current state,” he taps Tooru’s chest over the blanket, “you cannot stop me.”

“Please, Hajime, do not put yourself in danger for me. My life will fade before you’ll have made the trip halfway to Karasuno.”

“How do you—"

“Do you really believe that I learned of my illness and _didn’t_ spend three consecutive, sleepless nights researching my condition?” Tooru’s laughter is a simple, soft wheeze. “I thought you knew me better than that. No, I've always known that there is a cure in Karasuno. But I'll be damned if I let Tobio-chan see me in this state.” He pauses. "I'll be damned if I let him kill me in this state."

Hajime grits his teeth.

"There is no guarantee that he will-"

“No guarantee, but there is a possibility that he will attack either of us. Iwa-chan, do not give up your life for something as fickle as mine,” Tooru murmurs.

“I have always given up everything for you,” Hajime says, tilting his head and looking down at Tooru. “I have always put you above everything else and I will not stop now.”

“You should, though,” Tooru states. “You should forget me, for a little bit.”

“As if I could ever forget you, idiot.”

“You know I would do the same for you, were I currently capable.”

“I do.”

Hajime shakily reaches for one of Tooru’s hands, unwrapping his fingers from around the tea cup, and placing it down on the floor. Circling his own fingers around Tooru’s wrist, he lifts Tooru’s hand to his mouth. Tooru’s breath audibly hitches at the unexpectedly tender gesture, and although Hajime notices the shine of tears in Tooru's eyes, he does not make a show of it. “I will take a horse,” Hajime whispers against Tooru’s too-cold skin, “and I will ride as fast as possible across the mountains. I will come back, in time, with a cure.”

Tooru sighs. “You’re an idiot, Iwa-chan.”

“Yeah, well,” Hajime presses a last, chaste kiss to the inside of Tooru’s wrist, “you’ve always told me that love makes people stupid.”

 

 

The ride to Datekou is peaceful and quick. Hajime gets stopped at both borders, gets his intentions checked, and once announced as one of Aoba Jousai’s top ranking Generals, his travels are made twice as easy and comfortable. 

Karasuno’s border, however, is more difficult to sneak past than he anticipated. Two guardians stand in the middle of the path, arguing with each other. Deciding to take the peaceful approach at first, instead of attacking from the shadows, Hajime slows his horse to a stop and climbs down. 

“Greetings,” he calls out, and both guardians’ backs snap to attention, straight as a rod. The small one, with shocking orange hair and a bright smile, eyes him with caramel eyes, the feathers dusted around his cheeks and along his neck ruffled, partly from curiosity, partly from suspicion. The other, a tall boy with a cloudy expression, eyes him with distrust etched in his features, his own feathers pressed flat against his skin. 

“You’re from Aoba Jousai,” the taller one notes.

“That is true.”

“Where the Grand King is from?!” the smaller one exclaims, jumping on the spot. “Why isn’t he with you?”

“Prince Oikawa is incapacitated at the moment. Also, he isn’t king. Not yet.”

“But he beat the King of the Court in combat!” the smaller one argues. Hajime cocks a brow at the statement, but before he can do so much as formulate a reply, the taller one has slapped the smaller one on the back of the head. 

“That makes him the Grand King in _our_ country, not theirs. Maybe if you paid attention to anything but your own stomach, you’d know.” Hajime tilts his head, confused. “What he means is that his title here is revered,” the taller guardian clarifies. “Ever since he defeated Kageyama.”

“I… you’re telling me you… revere Prince Oikawa?”

“That is what I said, yes. Oikawa-sama is well respected, here."

Hajime can feel himself deflating, all of the anxious tension in his shoulders snapping like a thread and leaving him boneless. “Oikawa-sama is very, very sick at the moment. He caught something, when he came here. None of our healers know what it is, but we believe that your people have the cure, and I would very much appreciate if I could acquire it.”

Both guardians look at each other, confusion etched on their faces, and with each second that ticks by, Hajime imagines Tooru’s life fading from him at a worrying speed. “Quickly, if possible?” he urges, and they snap out of their trance, jumping to attention once more. 

“Sugawara-san is the only healer around here,” the blonde one explains. “So you’ll have to ask him about it. I am Tsukishima, this is Hinata. We’re the Guardians of the border.”

The smaller one jumps up at the sound of his name. “Hinata! That’s me!” he exclaims, and Hajime awkwardly waves at him. 

“We can take you to his lab, but you will need to fly.”

“Pardon?”

“The palace is up in the mountains,” Tsukishima explains, “without a path to guide you up. You must leave your horse at one of our stables and ride the eagles up to the sanctuary. It is the only way to access Sugawara-san’s laboratory.”

Hajime takes a deep breath, and visualises Tooru's smiling face, the reason he has made this trip and has survives for all of these years, so far, because he is absolutely, irrevocably, _completely_ terrified of heights. 

 

 

The Sugawara in question is another crow-shifter, much like the other two Karasuno residents that Hajime met. Except, instead of a cloudy expression like Tsukishima’s or a bright smile like Hinata’s, Sugawara has a glint in his eye that gives Hajime the impression that, despite having never met before, he knows everything about Hajime.

His lab is carved into the side of a mountain, with large windows that give way for a gentle breeze. The stone ceiling rises high above their heads, and ornamented shelves, covered in different ingredients, line each wall. On top of them, crows of all shapes and sizes study Hajime’s movements intently. At Hajime’s obvious discomfort, Sugawara dismisses the birds, and they take off, in formation, in large circle above the both of their heads, before flying out of the window and into the crisp mountain air.

“Can you describe his symptoms?” Sugawara asks, leading Hajime across the room, and gesturing for him to sit down on a plush, ornamented seat. Sugawara then makes his way to a table in the centre of the laboratory, and flicks a few sparks into a fire beneath a pot of water, bringing it to life. 

“I… don’t really know how to describe it. He coughs a lot, blood, sometimes. His hands are constantly shaking and his skin is too pale. He can barely stand up these days, but it doesn’t seem like fatigue.”

“What makes you say that?” Sugawara says, picking up a cup and pouring the tea into it.

Hajime smiles, fondly. “He still talks just about as much as he did when he was healthy.” Hajime thanks the gods for Tooru's voice remaining intact despite his insistent coughing. He doesn't quite know how his days would go by without the incessant ringing of ' _Iwa-chan_ ' in his ears, without Tooru speaking to him in hushed tones, voice like silk against his skin, while the both of them took their daily walk in the courtyard.

Sugawara hums, stepping closer to Hajime and handing him the cup. “Did he eat anything exotic, while on his trip here?”

Hajime rummages through his own memories, fingers circling around the warm ceramic and finding comfort in it, a familiar feeling in an unfamiliar situation. “I don’t believe so. He ate fruits, mostly, and refused to touch the plates that were given to him." Tooru had been too enraged by Kageyama's challenge to eat properly. "Perhaps he drank something?”

Sugawara smiles, knowingly, and begins gathering ingredients and equipment alike. “I believe that what ails your prince is a sickness that normally only affects magical creatures,” he explains. “It normally acts like the common cold, however, to a non-magical, it can be fatal. Of course, this would be a lot easier had you brought him here.”

Hajime clears his throat, suddenly feeling awkward, the light atmosphere around them darkening like a candle being snuffed out. “Surely you must’ve realised that bringing him to the place where the cure is the most studied would be the best choice for him.”

“We were not aware that he is… revered as a ‘Grand King’, in your country.” Hajime feels like he’s giving an excuse, like a child being scolded for eating the last dessert. 

Sugawara eyes him over a set of pots. “Is that so?”

“After the incident with Kageyama,” Hajime clarifies. “We thought our relations were… rocky, at best, with Karasuno. I did not want to risk bringing Oikawa here in a weakened state, especially if you were to be hostile toward us."

“Ah,” Sugawara replies. The feathers around his neck flutter in the breeze, and Hajime distractedly watches them. Nothing about magical creatures feels familiar to him, feels safe. There's an energy around them, an energy that Hajime sometimes feels around Tooru. Static gathering between those who do and those who do not feel magic. It feels like a push and pull, where magical creatures try to share their energy, and the bodies of non-magicals refuse them, causing a build up of tension in the atmosphere. Hajime feels this right now, with Sugawara at his side. Static pools along his arms and down to the tip of his fingers, and he feels restless. He begins bouncing his leg to an unheard rhythm as Sugawara keeps working. 

Finally, Sugawara looks up from his ingredients.

“Despite the fact that you believed we were going to be hostile toward you, you showed up here. Alone. Were you relying only on your horse and your good nature to protect you?”

The question shocks Hajime into silence, his lips moving around half-formed words. Of course he'd come here, is instinctual response, because he’d always do anything for Tooru, would throw himself into the fire if that meant Tooru could be warm for just a little longer. Whether the people of Karasuno were hostile or not meant nothing to him, the only thing on his mind had been to find that plant and bring it back to Tooru, to keep Tooru alive, to keep him at Hajime's side. There had been no consideration for Hajime's safety, next to something as important as the rhythmic beating of Tooru's heart.

The physician giggles, covering his mouth with a graceful hand. “Sometimes I wonder which is more potent,” he muses, voice in a sing-song, “the power of a mage, or the power of love?”

For a brief moment, Sugawara flickers in and out of Hajime's vision, instead replaced by billowing robes made of starlight and empty eyes full of mirth. He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the strange hallucination, chalking it up to the tea and mountain air. When he opens them again, Sugawara is staring at him, confused.  Hajime can feel his cheeks turning carmine under Sugawara’s scrutiny. 

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he grouches, though his voice doesn't sound entirely like his own.

“Perhaps, in your opinion, it isn't,” Sugawara admits, “but in my opinion, it is, because _you_ are the one who walked into a supposed hostile country, my country, in order to cure someone, out of your own free will.”

“How do you know that?”

Sugawara dumps a combination of herbs into a mortar, lifts up the pestle and begins crushing them. “Because, you haven’t once mentioned that you were under the Lord's orders, and the King of Aoba Jousai’s rocky relationship with his own offspring is no secret, even to nations like ours.”

Hajime’s blood boils beneath the skin of his cheeks. “And so what if it was my choice to come here?”

Sugawara does not reply for a while, instead pouring the juice from the crushed leaves into a smaller pot. Finally, he smiles. “Iwaizumi-san, it was not a criticism. I am simply fascinated by the fact that humans like you call themselves non-magicals when the strongest type of magic resides within the confines of your heart.”

 

 

As he steps down the stone path on his way to Tooru's quarters, Hajime reflects on Sugawara's words. He is under no delusion that if it had been anyone other than Tooru, he would never have risked his own neck like he had, that he's done this purely out of love. _Magic,_ Sugawara had called it, had referred to the emotions swirling within Hajime like they were something he could barely understand, like he were a scholar agonising over a newly discovered spell. He was right in doing so, Hajime muses. Love is inexplicable, powerful, ridiculous. It can turn a man into a monster, and a monster into a man. Entire countries have been ravaged over love, deals brokered and wars started because of it. Love made a person capable of anything, and there Hajime stands, outside of Tooru's door, a case in point himself, having crossed two countries over the simple course of a week. 

_What if I hadn't come back?_ he wonders, nodding to the two guards keeping watch. 

“I have the cure,” he says, gesturing to the pouch holding the small bottles of green fluid. “Let me through.”

The two men eye each other for a moment, before briefly nodding to each other and stepping aside to let Hajime slide the doors open. Hajime thanks the both of them before he slips into the room, the knowledge that they’d both directly disobeyed orders from the Lord heavy on his heart. 

Tooru looks worse for wear, when Hajime’s eyes first land on him. He’s seated by a fire, shaking fingers trying, and failing, to properly hold a cup of tea. His head snaps up at the sound of Hajime’s footsteps, and he smiles, lips wobbling. 

“Welcome back,” he says, and Hajime notices the hoarseness of his voice, undoubtedly from the ceaseless coughing. Hajime’s heart clenches at the pitiful sight, and he drops everything he is holding but the small bag containing the cure. 

“I have the cure,” Hajime says, pulling one of the vials from the bag and popping it open. The smell of crushed leaves begins permeating through the stale air of Tooru’s room. "Your ailment is apparently a common cold for the magical folk."

Tooru snorts, and he gingerly takes the small bottle from Hajime's fingers. "Of course I would have to catch a _Karasuno_ sickness."

Hajime tips the bottle toward Tooru's face in a silent plea for him to drink it. Tooru shakes his head, lifting the bottle away from Hajime's prying fingers.

"You know, I realised something," Tooru says. His voice shakes, and he looks down at the green liquid between his hands. "While I was waiting for you to return."

"What was it?"

“I really, really love you, Hajime."

_ I really, really love you. _ A thousand voices chorus Tooru's, falling from the sky and bouncing around the room like an overexcited child, and Hajime closes his eyes against the sharp twinge in his heart. 

“Drink the damn potion, Oikawa,” he growls, a pathetic attempt at keeping up his facade when he’s on the verge of weeping, or laughing, or perhaps both. 

“I am, I am,” Tooru interrupts himself with a small sip, “so pushy.”

“I’m pushy because I’m saving your life.”

“Of course,” Tooru teases, “what would I do without my valiant protector? My loyal knight? My—“

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re nothing without me.”

Tooru chuckles, but his gaze hardens as he settles it on Hajime’s face. “Of course. But let us not forget where you would be without me.”

“Nowhere,” Hajime breathes, and oh, Tooru is close, all of a sudden. He’s leaning forward, too, so near that Hajime can feel each breath that Tooru takes, each exhale of warm air against his cheek. “I’d be nowhere,” he clarifies, completing his thought. There isn't anywhere he wants to be without Tooru.

Tooru hums, gaze flicking down to his lips. 

“I bet you taste gross,” Hajime says, but he licks his lips anyway, and Tooru grins, even as he ducks down and presses his mouth to Hajime’s. He smells like raspberries and tastes like mango, and Hajime lets his eyes flutter shut.

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

 

**_Tokyo, Japan, Earth, The Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Reality._ **

**_Sunday, March 11th, 2018  
11:54 A.M_ **

**_Hajime Iwaizumi & Tooru Oikawa_**

 

“…chan!….Iwa—… wa-chan!”

Hajime blinks himself awake, the sound of a voice very familiar, and very chirpy, for an early Sunday morning, permeating through his dreams. Hands are clasping his shoulders, shaking him out of his slumber. Hajime groans, throws a hand out to gently slap Tooru’s face, and the latter squawks, falling back against their pillows. 

“You are the worst,” Hajime grumbles, rubbing his bleary eyes. “For waking me up like this.”

“I’m sorry Iwa-chan, I believe you mispronounced ‘best’?” Tooru replies, and it’s then that Hajime picks up the smell of freshly cooked waffles, over the mango scent of Tooru’s shampoo, and the raspberry scent of his moisturiser. 

“What the—“

“ _I,”_ Tooru continues, pressing his fingers against his own chest, “the great Oikawa-san, have made you breakfast!”

Hajime blinks once, twice, trying to see whether this is reality or simply a dream. When he opens his eyes for the third time, and Tooru is still there, holding a tray in front of him, Hajime sits up. Tooru shuffles closer to him. He flings the blanket off of Hajime's body, earning a weak groan, before he places the tray on Hajime’s lap. Hajime can feel the warmth of the plate, and of the waffles, through the plastic of the tray and on his bare legs. 

“Is… there an occasion?” He can’t quite recall what the date is. Has he missed an anniversary? 

“Not really!” Tooru replies, smile beaming like the sun, and Hajime feels warm, suddenly, thanks to him. “I just wanted to feed my Iwa-chan something tasty on this lazy Sunday morning.”

He's lying, at least partly so.

Hajime can easily see right through Tooru, from the way he nervously gnaws on his bottom lip, to the way his eyes dart from side to side as he waits for Hajime to call him stupid. He’s feeling self-conscious, perhaps inferior to someone again. Hajime racks his brain, tries to think about something that happened this week that could have possibly triggered Tooru’s insatiable need for validation to worsen. 

When nothing comes up, he simply grabs the fork and knife from Tooru’s hands and begins cutting into the pile of waffles. They’re soft and fluffy inside, he notes, with a crunchy exterior, and he knows they’ve been done to perfection, just the way they both like it, because no matter how many people expect Tooru to be a disaster in the kitchen, Tooru has never been a disaster in anything. 

Hajime stabs the fork into the waffle, relishes in how fluffy it is, before he dips it in whipped cream, scoops up a sliced strawberry with it, and moves to press the fork against Tooru’s waiting lips. 

Tooru opens his mouth, closes his teeth around the pastry, before using his lips to gather the whipped cream into his mouth. He hums as he chews, and when he looks back at Hajime, his eyes twinkle in silent victory. 

Cooked to perfection, as Hajime expected. 

Small snippets of his dream flash back, Toorus whispering ' _I love you's_ into his skin and barriers standing between the both of them, as he watches Tooru's jaw work while he chews. _Does he think I don't want him anymore?_

It's the only thing Hajime can think of, considering Tooru had only recently made it to the first string in the National Japanese Volleyball team, Hajime still waiting on the bench as a pinch server, and he'd been ecstatic about it until the evening prior. Surely it hadn't changed over the course of a single night of sleep. Kageyama hadn't made an earth-shattering appearance in Tooru's life, although he _had_ been placed on the third string, because neither of them were going to give up their long time dreams because of petty high school grudges. Ushijima had been an outstanding teammate, surprisingly, and Tooru, although never moving past his hostility, had learned to work with him just as well as he worked with the rest of the team. 

Never like he works with Hajime, though. That was something special, something even their coaches realised. 

_"These two are linked,"_ one of the coaches had said, stern eyes raking over the way Tooru set for Hajime, _"I don't know how, but they're on the exact same wavelength."_  


Yeah, Hajime thinks. The only thing that Tooru could possibly be insecure about, right now, is Hajime's feelings.

“You know I love you more than anything in this universe, in any universe, right?” Hajime says, before Tooru’s finished chewing. He places the fork down on the plate, picks up the tray and balances it, albeit precariously, on the edge of their bedside table, out of sight and out of mind, for the moment. Hopefully it doesn’t fall, he thinks, as he lays back down into their pillows to stare up at Tooru. 

Tooru, who is currently watching him like he’s grown a second head.

_ Did I get it wrong? _ Hajime wonders, before mentally shrugging, because what's the harm in reminding Tooru that he is Hajime's entire world? Apart from the massive ego inflation, which, if Hajime has to be honest, he doesn't quite mind. He prefers it when Tooru is confident and at his best, rather than panicky and self-conscious, and at his worst.

“Iwa-chan, are you feeling okay?” Tooru queries, scooting closer to press the back of his very cold hand to Hajime’s forehead. “Ah, nope. I knew it, you’re burning up, you have a fever and you’re delirious.”

“I’m — holy shit — stop that, Tooru, I’m not delirious,” Hajime argues, slapping Tooru’s hand away and glaring at him. “I just love you.”

Tooru stares at him, bewildered, before he laughs, rich and honest and so very _Tooru_ (and not just any Tooru, but the Tooru that is only ever around Hajime) that Hajime forgets how to breathe, if only for a moment. “What about me do you love, then?” Tooru teases, leaning back on his hands and swaying the weight of his upper body from side to side. “And don’t say my good looks, because as much as you claim that they have nothing to do with your feelings, you know that’s not true.”

“Shittykawa I don’t love you because you’re gorgeous.” Tooru bites his lip at the roundabout compliment. “Though,” Hajime admits, blood boiling where it’s gathered beneath the skin of his cheeks, “it is an added bonus.”

Tooru lets out a triumphant ‘ _ha_!’ and pushes himself up, on his knees, to free his arms from his own weight. “I knew it!” he singsongs, lifting a hand to tap the tip of Hajime’s nose with his index finger. Hajime grumbles under his breath, rolls over so that he’s laying on his stomach. 

“I love all of you. _Even_ your good looks.”

That has Tooru stopping in his tracks. He eyes Hajime, first in suspicion, then dubiously, and finally, when he notices that Hajime is being 100% serious, that he is actually doing this, is actually going to have this conversation with him, joke-free, scarlet begins flooding his cheeks. Tooru averts his eyes, then starts to hum to himself, as if to disperse the intensity of Hajime’s gaze. 

“Hajime,” he breathes, when Hajime doesn’t stop staring at him. “What on earth is going on in that head of yours?”

Hajime drapes himself across Tooru's lap, wrapping strong arms around Tooru's waist and squeezing. He lays his head on the downward slope of Tooru's thigh, looks up at Tooru, and forces all of his previous anxieties to leave him with his next breath.

If Hajime has to be honest, a lot of things, maybe too many things, are running through his head.

He's thinking about how much he loves Tooru, how he doesn't ever want to lose him, how he's grateful that nothing in this world has stood between them and made their lives any more difficult than they already are. He's thinking about the way that sometimes, like this very moment, he loves Tooru so much that his heart feels like vines have wrapped around it, squeezing it until it cannot beat for anyone but Tooru. He wonders if Tooru feels the same, if the same vines are wrapped around his heart, too, if they're linking the two of them together, invisible and yet ever present, a bond that cannot be broken because it is nonexistent and yet it defines the very nature of their relationship. He's thinking about how much he wants Tooru with him, about how he wants to wake up to Tooru's sleepy face and incredible bed head every morning. How he wants to find Tooru in the bathroom on Monday mornings, blearily brushing his teeth and taking up too much of the tiny space in front of the sink. He's thinking about how much he enjoys lifting Tooru by the waist, as their morning pattern dictates, how much he enjoys watching Tooru's face scrunch up in a sleepy, irritated pout, even as he keeps brushing his teeth, and waits for Hajime to put him down slightly to the right of his original position, freeing enough space for the both of them to brush their teeth, side by side.

He's thinking about how living in this apartment, this cramped, shitty place, where the faucet leaks, and the towel-rack falls off periodically, no matter how many times Hajime screws it back in place and Tooru whines at it, where the stove turns off randomly or heats up too quickly and ends up ruining their meals more often than not, where the heating only works half the time and where they find cockroaches in their bathrooms, has been better than any other time in his life.

All of that because he gets to experience it with Tooru. Tooru, the light of his life, his aspiration, his rival, his goal, the only stars in his sky. The whole galaxy could shut down around them, and Hajime would still find enough light and warmth in the man currently humming to himself above him, trying desperately to control the furious blush spreading over those soft cheekbones like wildfire.

“Marry me,” murmurs Hajime, in a sudden burst of courage. Tooru’s eyes widen, and his mouth drops open in a graceful little ‘o’, stopping his humming short. His fingers cease their fiddling and he simply stares, surprised, down at Hajime, who meets his gaze easily, unwavering. 

“A-are you serious, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime nods. 

He’d been meaning to ask this for a while, for a long time, actually, for over a year. He had agonised over the decision, had fits of self-deprecation where he couldn't believe that Tooru was in love with him, that Tooru would be alright with tying himself to Hajime any more than he was. There would be moments when he'd look at Tooru, really _look_ at him, and realise that perhaps he'd been holding Tooru down to Earth when all Tooru wanted to do was explore the skies.

But just as there were bad moments, there were those when he simply knew, deep within his core, that Tooru loves him. There were times when he'd felt his heart clench painfully because he noticed the way Tooru’s eyes lingered on the rings in jewellery shops' display windows and on the fingers of Hajime’s married co-workers. He raises an arm and points to the bedside table on Tooru’s side of the bed. 

Tooru eyes him for a moment, confused, before he leans back and hesitantly reaches into the drawer. He rummages through it for a moment, before his whole body freezes at the sight of something Hajime knows is a small, dark blue velvet box. When he pulls it out, a few warm tears spill over the curve of his cheeks. He opens it with shaking fingers, finds a simple, silver band within. Hajime knows that it isn't so simple, that Hajime's very own name is engraved on the inside of the ring, where it will be pressed, forever, to Tooru's skin. There's a story behind the silver band, behind the both of them talking, when they were still in high school. 

_Iwa-chan,_ Tooru had said, that day. _If we were to get married, what kind of a ring would you get?_

_Something simple,_ Hajime had replied, turning over so he could look at Tooru while they spoke. Tooru had pouted, then, and crossed his arms over his chest. 

_Nothing fancy?_ he'd asked. _I was expecting a diamond, in a final declaration of love, or something._

Hajime had slapped him on the thigh, called him stupid over the sound of Tooru's indignant yelp, and glared hard at him. _I don't think you need a diamond to know just how much I love you, idiot,_ he'd said. _I'd get you a silver band, and then I'd have my named engraved on it, because, you never take off a wedding ring, right? Or well- almost never, anyway. Like that, I'll be with you, wherever you go, no matter where you are. It'll be the only reminder you need that I will always be there for you, that I will never leave, and that I love you the most. S-So..._ And then, his anger had very quickly given way to embarrassment, because Hajime has never been good with words, and he'd most likely screwed up his confession, but Tooru had stared up at him, face red and lips wobbly, and then had burst into tears. 

23-year-old Tooru is not much different than his high school self. When he pulls the ring out, a small sob shudders through his whole body. Hajime closes his eyes, presses his face into Tooru’s thigh, and gives him the time he needs to compose himself. 

A few more broken sobs echo above him before Tooru finally takes a deep breath. 

“Hajime…”

Hajime cracks one eye open. “Mmh?”

Tooru looks down at him, tears dribbling down his cheeks. “Of course,” he whispers. "I love you." 

He ducks down, then, presses his lips to Hajime’s cheek, and Hajime can feel the small drops clinging to Tooru's lashes smear against his skin. When Tooru pulls back, Hajime turns his head, catches Tooru’s retreating lips in a chaste kiss.

“I love you, and I will always love you,” Hajime says, reaching up and snatching the ring from Tooru’s grasp. With his free hand, he grabs Tooru's left hand and slides it onto Tooru’s quivering finger. He feels relief flood through him when it fits perfectly, just as he thought, just as he'd hoped. “Don’t you ever forget that.”

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

 

It was a strange dream, Hajime reckons, when Tooru’s cried himself into a tizzy and rushed off to the bathroom to clean himself up, though Hajime knows he will spend more time ogling the ring and preening in front of the mirror than actually wiping his tears. 

It was a dream filled with Toorus that were not enough and that were too much, a dream filled with the scent of raspberry and mango, a dream where the voice of a higher being echoed within his mind and crackled across the sky like thunder, and Hajime is glad to be back on the ground, on the real ground, with a Tooru at his side that he knows inside and out. 

The door to the bathroom clicks open, and Tooru emerges, beautiful, ethereal Tooru, with eyes slightly puffy and a smile so bright Hajime wants to snatch it off his face and forever keep it as a guiding light, as a reason to live.

 

 

 

⚘

 

 

An ending, for you, or perhaps, a beginning, for them

 

_and above their heads, body sinking into a pillow made of starlight, the cosmic being smiles an empty smile full of love and watches its two proteges, two experiments, two tightly knit humans tumble off their bed and onto the floor, laughing, kissing, touching._

_good job, little warrior, it whispers, and from a bond too strong, from a love undying between two mortals no matter their circumstance, is borne another star._

_tooru, the deity names it, and its adjacent planets, its protectors, defenders, the ones pulled by its gravitational force and never willing to escape, its everlasting companions, there until its death, are aptly named_

 

 

_hyalite_

 

_agate_

 

_jacinth_

 

_iris_

 

_morion_

 

_elbaite_

 

 

_and perhaps, it had not been a dream at all, because no matter whom and where the little warrior was, he never strayed too far from the whimsical soul, and the red threads linking their hearts together remained as strong as ever, pushing the both of them to improve themselves, to be better than the person they were yesterday, as lovers, as rivals, as goals; to push past the boundaries of their own lives and transcend through realities, good men, bad men, better men, even bitter men, sometimes._

_and always, always the best they could be._

 

 

_because **that** is the magic of love._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> Comments are appreciated!


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